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BROTHER     SCOTS 


BROTHER    SCOTS 


BY 


DONALD   CARSWELL 


CljO 

m 


NEW  YORK 
HARCOURT,  BRACE  AND  COMPANY 


TO   KATE 


PRINTED    IN    GRKAT    BRITAIN 
BY    R.    &    R.    CLARK.    LIMITED,    EDINBUBGR 


SfacK 
Annex 


PREFACE 

The  biographical  Studies  that  make  up  this  book 
are  ostensibly  separate  essays,  each  complete  in 
itself.  But  they  were  not  separately  conceived. 
My  idea  in  writing  them  was  to  give  not  only 
some  account  of  a  number  of  intrinsically  interest- 
ing men  but  also  a  cultural  picture  of  Scotland 
in  the  late  years  of  the  nineteenth  century.  The 
pidure  is  neither  complete  nor,  even  in  regard  to 
the  aspects  of  Scottish  life  with  which  it  deals, 
very  explicit,  but  it  contains  matter  which  I  believe 
will  be  found  interesting,  especially  by  English 
readers. 

The  Scottish  charafter  is  familiar  enough  and 
it  adapts  itself  readily  enough  to  EngHsh  ways 
and  institutions.  Yet  it  is  never  quite  assimilated. 
There  remains  always  something  unresolved, 
something  alien,  even  hostile  to  the  English 
genius.  The  Englishman  feels  it,  but  is  at  a  loss 
to  say  what  it  is.  The  Scotsman  cannot  help 
him  to  define  it,  for  he  himself  has  never  thought 
the  matter  out.  He  merely  repeats  a  few  patriotic 
cliches,  and  like  moSt  patriots  he  has  not  even  an 
elementary  knowledge  of  the  history  of  his  own 
country. 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

There  are  two  fundamental  fafts  to  be  noted 
about  Scotland.  The  fir§t  is  racial.  The  Scots 
are  a  mixed  race,  made  up  of  the  same  elements 
as  the  English,  but  in  different  proportions,  the 
Anglo-Saxon  element  being  much  smaller.  The 
fair-haired  Germanic  type  common  in  England 
is  rare  in  Scotland,  except  anomalously  in  the 
North  Highlands,  where  it  is  of  Norse  origin. 
The  dark  pre-Celtic  race  is  widely  diffused  though 
it  is  found  in  its  purity  only  in  the  We§t  Highlands. 
In  the  Lowlands  this  mixture  of  races  has  pro- 
duced a  people  of  exceptionally  robust  and  acute 
intelligence  and  Strong,  even  coarse,  passions. 
In  general,  though  extremely  shrewd,  they  lack 
insight,  and  as  compared  with  the  English  they 
may  be  described  as  more  fantastic  but  less 
imaginative. 

The  other  faft  is  historical.  England,  ever 
since  it  has  been  England,  has  been  a  relatively 
rich  and  populous  country,  and  for  more  than 
eight  centuries  has  enjoyed  a  setded  government 
under  a  Strong  and  vital  central  power.  The 
people  accept  the  rule  of  law  as  they  accept  the 
air  they  breathe.  They  are  seasoned  in  civilisa- 
tion. The  case  of  Scotland  is  very  different. 
During  the  greater  part  of  their  history  the 
Scottish  nation  were  Hke  the  conies,  a  feeble  folk 
who  made  their  houses  in  the  rocks.  Through- 
out  the  Middle  Ages,  and  for  long  afterwards, 
their  condition  was  one  of  direSt  misery.  The 
English  villein,  wretched  as  he  was,  lived  better 

vi 


PREFACE 

than  the  Scottish  freeman.  The  poverty  was  not 
altogether  due  to  the  barrenness  of  the  soil,  for 
Scotland,  as  Cromwell  noted  when  he  marched 
through  the  Lothians,  has  some  of  the  finest 
agricultural  land  in  Great  Britain.  Cromwell 
further  noticed,  with  surprise  and  indignation,  that 
this  exceeding  good  land  was  occupied  by  an 
idle,  ignorant  and  degraded  peasantry  who  were 
literally  Starving  in  the  mid§t  of  plenty.  Yet 
these  poor  people  were  not  to  blame.  Their 
misery  was  due  to  the  political  situation  of  their 
country.  The  Lowlands  were  at  the  mercy  of  a 
lawless  and  greedy  feudalism  which  treated  the 
Crown  with  contempt.  They  were  menaced 
from  the  south  by  their  rich  and  powerful 
neighbours  of  England,  and  from  the  north  by  a 
warlike  people  technically  their  fellow-citizens 
but  alien  in  speech  and  culture,  who  regarded 
brigandage  as  the  mo^  honourable,  indeed  the 
only,  profession  for  men  of  breeding.  Such 
conditions  do  not  make  for  good  husbandry  in 
any  sense  of  the  term. 

These  centuries  of  battle,  murder,  sudden 
death,  peftilence  and  famine  might  well  have  sunk 
the  Scottish  people  into  a  degradation  from  which 
no  recovery  was  possible.  Yet  history  presents 
few  phenomena  more  remarkable  than  the  rapid 
cultural  development  of  Scotland  after  the  Parlia- 
mentary Union  of  1707.  The  Union  gave  Scot- 
land not  only  economic  freedom  but,  what  was 
even  more  important,  a  Strong  settled  govern- 

vii 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

ment.  Under  the  new  conditions  the  national 
charafter  began  to  manifest  unsuspefted  and  even 
disconcerting  reserves  of  ftrength.  There  was  a 
dangerous  moment  in  1745.  The  baleful  light 
of  the  fiery  cross  was  kindled  once  more,  but  only 
to  be  extinguished  in  blood  for  the  laft  time  at 
CuUoden.  The  defeat  of  Jacobitism  was  followed 
by  the  suppression  of  the  clan  system,  whereby 
Scodand  got  rid  of  the  la§t  obstacle  to  the  free 
development  of  her  people.  Thenceforward  the 
country  made  such  rapid  progress  that  in  a 
generation  or  so  it  was  in  a  condition  to  submit 
to  the  indu^rial  revolution  without  imdue  hurt. 

This  adaptabihty,  this  capacity  to  make  up  for 
centuries  of  lo§t  time,  is  admirable,  and  Scotsmen 
are  fully  entided  to  be  proud  of  it.  But  its 
achievement  m\i§t  not  be  exaggerated.  The 
accounts  of  the  Time  Spirit  are  not  easily  squared. 
With  all  the  wit  and  all  the  will  in  the  world  a 
people  who  have  enjoyed  only  two  hundred  years 
of  prosperity  and  settled  government  are  bound 
to  differ  in  national  charafter  from  a  people  who 
have  enjoyed  eight  hundred.  Their  culture  may 
conform  to  the  same  models,  but  it  will  not  have 
the  same  colour  and  texture.  Thus  the  Scot, 
though  curiously  conscientious,  lacks  that  moral 
perspeftive  that  enables  the  Englishman  as  a 
mere  matter  of  course  to  "  do  his  duty  "  or  "  play 
the  game  ".  The  Scotsman,  too,  can  do  these 
things.  Generally  he  will  make  a  point  of  doing 
them.     But  he  has  always  to  think  them  out  fir§t. 

viii 


PREFACE 

And  traces  of  the  old  rudeness,  the  old  individual- 
ism, the  old  wiliness  will  remain.  Scotland  has 
not  yet  been  able  to  banish  the  tormenting  spirit 
of  faftion  and  civil  Strife.  During  the  eighteenth 
and  nineteenth  centuries  it  took  the  form  of 
ecclesiastical  schism.  Driven  out  of  the  churches 
in  the  twentieth  century,  it  has  entered  politics 
and  industry  with  results  that  have  been  dis- 
agreeably apparent  since  the  War. 

For  the  benefit  of  non-Scottish  readers  un- 
familiar with  the  Presbyterian  order,  a  few  words 
of  explanation  may  be  added.  The  ministry, 
which  consists  of  a  single  order,  retains  a 
"  prieStly  "  character  to  the  extent  that  it  has 
the  exclusive  right  of  expounding  dodrine  and 
administering  religious  ordinances.  Ministers  are 
sometimes  described  as  "  teaching  presbyters  ". 
But  for  all  purposes  of  church  government  and 
discipline  they  have  associated  with  them  "  ruling 
presbyters  ",  or  elders.  The  loweSt  court  of  the 
church  is  the  kirk-session,  consisting  of  the 
minister  as  moderator  and  an  indeterminate 
number  of  elders  elefted  by  the  congregation. 
It  exercises  spiritual  discipline  over  the  congrega- 
tion and  administers  the  rite  of  ordination  to 
persons  eleded  to  the  eldership.  Each  kirk- 
session  sends  two  members — the  minister  and  an 
elder — to  the  local  presbytery.  The  presbytery 
is  the  real  unit  of  the  Presbyterian  system.  While 
the  area  of  its  jurisdiftion  is  no  greater  than  a 

ix 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

rural  deanery,  the  funftions  of  the  court  are 
episcopal.  It  is  the  originating  body  for  most 
church  business.  It  ordains  to  the  ministry  and 
is  the  court  of  fir§t  instance  in  all  disciplinary 
proceedings  against  the  clergy.  Two  or  three 
presbyteries  sitting  together  form  a  synod,  which 
is  an  intermediate  appellate  court.  The  supreme 
court  of  the  Church  is  the  General  Assembly. 
It  is  elefted  by  the  presbyteries,  the  commissioners 
consisting  of  ministers  and  elders  in  equal  pro- 
portions. The  Assembly  meets  once  a  year. 
Before  dissolving  it  passes  an  annual  Ad:  appoint- 
ing all  its  members,  p/tis  one  nominated  by  the 
Moderator,  to  be  a  Commission  to  deal  with 
matters  of  urgency  arising  in  the  interval  between 
Assemblies.  The  constitutional  position  of  the 
Commission  of  Assembly  was  the  subjed:  of  acrid 
controversy  in  the  laSt  Stages  of  the  Robertson 
Smith  case.  Proceedings  in  all  Presbyterian 
Church  courts  are  conduced  according  to  precise 
forms  and  have  a  technical  vocabulary  borrowed 
from  the  Qvil  Courts  and  the  old  Scots  Parlia- 
ment. A  curious  term  of  art,  which  I  have  had 
occasion  to  use  in  the  essay  on  Robertson  Smith, 
is  "  overture  ".  It  means  a  formal  request  by  a 
presbytery  that  the  General  Assembly  shall  take 
cognisance  of  some  matter  and  proceed  to 
appropriate  a^iiion.  D.  C. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

PREFACE       ...... 

V 

HENRY   DRUMMOND:    A   MYSTERY      . 

I 

"SMITH    O'    AIBERDEEn" 

.       54 

JOHN   STUART   BLACKIE 

.       121 

KEIR   HARDIE         ..... 

.       155 

LORD   OVERTOUN               .... 

.       191 

"CLAUDIUS    clear"       .... 

212 

XI 


HENRY  DRUMMOND  :  A  MYSTERY 

Henry  Drummond  was  born  in  185 1,  a  year  after 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson.  He  matriculated  at 
Edinburgh  University  in  the  Faculty  of  Arts  in 
1866,  a  year  before  Stevenson  matriculated  in 
Science.  From  1867  to  1875  the  two  were  fellow- 
Students,  pursuing  each  in  his  own  way  an  un- 
certain and  to  all  appearance  unprofitable  career. 
They  never  met.  Each  played  the  charmer  in 
his  particular  circle,  but  the  circles  did  not  touch, 
much  less  intersedt.  Had  any  chance  encounter 
occurred  between  them  it  may  be  taken  for 
granted  that  neither  would  have  seen  much  to 
desire  in  the  other.  From  Stevenson's  point 
of  view  Drummond  could  only  have  been  a 
sanftimonious  young  prig  of  mean  attainments, 
who  added  to  his  offending  by  being  a  dandy 
and,  in  a  genteel  way,  a  sportsman.  Drummond, 
for  all  his  charity  and  real  liking  for  odd  chara£iers, 
could  hardly  have  seen  in  Stevenson  anything 
but  a  youth  of  sickly  habit,  slovenly  in  dress  and 
loose  of  life — in  short,  a  generally  unsavoury 
young  man,  who,  having  no  more  sense  of 
his  lo§t  condition  than  he  had  of  the  supreme 

I  B 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

importance  of  cleanliness  and  cricket,  was  not 
even  interesting  as  a  sinner. 

To  bracket  two  such  names,  to  discern  a 
parallelism  in  charafters  so  divergent,  to  suggest 
that  Drummond  and  Stevenson  were  in  some  sort 
spiritual  congeners,  may  seem  to  the  survivors 
of  their  generation  an  exercise  in  the  perverse 
and  the  fantastic.  Really  it  is  only  the  common 
transmutation  of  paradox  into  platitude  by  lapse 
of  time.  These  young  men  were  twin  apostles 
of  that  uneasy  Aufkldrung  that  marked  the  laSt 
quarter  of  the  nineteenth  centujy.  They  were 
children  of  the  same  race,  generation  and  culture. 
Both  came  into  the  world  exadUy  in  the  middle 
of  the  century.  Neither  lived  to  see  the  century 
out.  Stevenson  died  in  1894,  aged  forty-four; 
Drummond  in  1897,  in  his  forty-sixth  year. 
Both  belonged  to  the  affluent  Scottish  middle- 
class,  and  both  puzzled  their  respeftive  God- 
fearing families — Stevenson  by  the  usual  device 
of  scandalising  them,  Drummond  by  subtler 
methods.  Each  had  a  great  aptitude  for  drift, 
and  each  in  the  same  year  of  grace  (1874)  found 
what  he  needed  to  give  his  life  direftion— the 
influence  of  a  forceful,  not  to  say  coarse,  man 
of  genius.  In  Stevenson's  case  it  was  W.  E. 
Henley,  in  Drummond's  D.  L.  Moody.  Three 
years  later  each  had  found  his  vocation.  Steven- 
son was  charming  the  readers  of  the  Cornhill,  and 
Drummond,  who  had  migrated  to  Glasgow,  was 
fascinating  theological  Students  and  young  iron- 


HENRY     DRUMMOND:     A     MYSTERY 

moulders — the  former  on  week-days  by  acquaint- 
ing them  in  an  agreeable  manner  with  the  elements 
of  modern  science,  the  latter  on  Sundays  by 
playing  the  part  of  a  new  Ezekiel  who  could 
measure  the  New  Jerusalem  with  the  yardstick 
of  Darwin  and  Huxley.  These  firSt  youthful 
adventures  resulted  in  two  immensely  popular 
books  —  Virginihm  Puerisque  and  Natural  Lajp 
in  the  Spiritual  World.  Neither  book  had  any 
intelledhial  merit  that  is  worth  considering 
at  this  time  of  day,  but  both  were  attuned 
to  the  mood  of  the  generation  and  amazingly 
well  written.  Thenceforward  Stevenson  and 
Drummond  ascended  into  fame  pari  passu.  Both 
made  their  appeal  to  youth — virginihm  puerisque — 
and  became  the  centre  of  a  cult  that  lasted  nearly 
a  generation  and  even  now  has  its  grey-haired 
votaries.  Each,  one  is  glad  to  think,  matured 
considerably  as  time  went  on,  enough  in  fa£i:  to 
raise  the  same  queftion  by  his  early  death — ^What 
would  he  have  done  had  he  lived  another  twenty 
years  ? 

In  Stevenson's  case  the  question,  though 
interesting,  is  not  important.  He  has  left  a 
permanent  record  by  which  he  can  be  judged 
through  all  the  eighteen  years  of  his  career.  We 
can  see  his  beginnings  and  trace  the  Stages  of  his 
growth  into  the  accomplished  artist  he  was  when 
he  died.  Weir  of  HermiHon^  had  it  been  finished, 
would  have  been  a  great  work,  but  it  is  unlikely 
that  it  would  have  altered  our  general  estimate  of 

5 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

the  author.  Stevenson,  in  the  nature  of  the  case, 
is  an  open  book.  There  is  no  mystery  about 
him.  With  Drummond,  on  the  other  hand, 
there  are  myfteries  at  every  turn,  at  the  end  as 
well  as  at  the  beginning  of  his  career.  The  fir§t 
that  one  encounters  is  the  mystery  of  his  intel- 
lectual equipment.  As  a  youth  he  was  lively  and 
intelligent  but  showed  even  less  than  average 
promise.  Like  Stevenson,  he  was  an  unsatis- 
faftory  Student;  but  Stevenson  had  the  excuse 
of  wretched  health,  and  even  so  he  showed 
considerable  aptitude  for  the  two  professions  he 
successively  Studied.  Drummond,  who  as  boy 
and  man  was  almost  aggressively  healthy,  had  a 
university  career  that  was  not  even  mediocre. 
There  was  no  reason  for  this  except  a  certain 
lack  of  moral  fibre.  It  is  certain  that  his  natural 
abilities,  though  not  distinguished,  were  sufficient, 
given  a  moderate  degree  of  application  and 
industry,  to  enable  him  to  make  a  creditable 
showing.  But  to  Drummond  application  was 
ever  abhorrent.  Diligent  he  could  be  in  any 
matter  that  held  his  emotions,  but  throughout  all 
his  varied  and  eventful  life  there  is  not  a  single 
instance  of  his  undertaking  a  task  that  was  not 
thoroughly  agreeable  to  him.  Though  at  school 
he  had  been  a  promising  LatiniSt  nothing  would 
induce  him  to  acquire  the  very  modeSt  amount 
of  Latin  and  Greek  that  sufficed  for  a  Scottish 
pass  degree  in  the  seventies.  "  I  never  had 
courage  ",  he  once  remarked  with  charaderiStic 

4 


HENRY     DRUMMOND:     A     MYSTERY 

blandness,  "  to  attempt  the  classical  department 
of  the  M.  A."  What  he  meant  was  that  he  simply 
could  not  be  bothered.  It  would  have  meant 
drudgery,  and  Henry  Drummond,  though  rather 
vague  on  many  things,  was  quite  clear  on  one 
point — that  drudgery  was  not  for  him.  Who 
shall  blame  him  ?  He  probably  had  a  shrewd 
notion  of  the  kind  of  part  for  which  Heaven  had 
caft  him.  We  have  a  suggestive  pidhire  of  the 
youth  from  a  fellow-Student.  "  He  generally 
wore  a  tall  hat  and  had  long  auburn  hair.  Though 
I  fain  would  have  spoken  to  him,  his  ethereal 
appearance  and  great  grace  and  refinement  seemed 
to  forbid  an  approach  to  one  who  appeared 
different  from  the  majority  of  Students.  .  .  .  He 
Struck  me  as  one  possessed  by  great  thoughts 
which  were  polarising  in  his  mind  and  giving  a 
happy  expression  to  his  face." 

Great  thoughts  polarising  in  his  mind ! 
Drummond  was  always  able  to  convey  that 
valuable  suggestion  of  himself.  He  was  not 
consciously  posing ;  he  could  not  help  looking 
interesting.  But  there  is  no  evidence  that  at 
that  time  he  thought  either  greatly  or  at  all.  In 
the  course  of  his  life  he  had  at  leaSt  one  good 
idea,  but  good  ideas  are  not  great  thoughts. 
No,  the  chances  are  that  the  red-haired  youth 
with  the  top-hat  who  Stood  in  solitary  elegance 
at  the  north-eaSt  corner  of  the  Old  Buildings 
quad,  was  pondering  the  possibility  of  regenerat- 
ing the  world  by  the  development  of  "  animal 

5 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

magnetism  "  and  telepathy,  a  species  of  mounte- 
bankery  in  which  he  had  great  faith  and  con- 
siderable gifts.  Presently  he  would  float  grace- 
fully from  ledure-room  to  lefture-room,  doing 
here  a  little  philosophy  not  so  badly  and  there  a 
little  science  really  well,  but  never  addressing 
himself  to  the  solid  business  of  taking  a  degree. 
He  left  the  University  without  one.  After  enter- 
ing upon  his  theological  curriculum  he  had  some 
thought  of  a  degree  in  science,  but  two  failures 
in  Part  I.  of  the  B.Sc.  made  him  give  that  up  also. 
There  is  no  excuse  for  his  laches.  His  intere^  in 
the  humanities  may  have  been  superficial  and  his 
capacity  for  them  meagre,  but  he  had  a  real 
scientific  gift,  and  Geikie  found  in  him  not  merely 
an  apt  pupil  but  a  geologist  of  rare  talent  that 
ju§t  fell  short  of  genius. 

In  these  circumstances  it  was  fortunate  for 
Drummond  that  he  had  an  indulgent  father  who 
was  content  to  let  a  favourite  son  do  pretty  much 
as  he  pleased.  Why  not  ?  Henry  was  a  delight- 
ful lad.  Everybody  said  so.  He  had  no  vices, 
which  was  a  great  comfort  when  one  considered 
what  young  men  were  apt  to  be.  He  was 
genuinely  religious  and  accepted  the  perfedion 
of  evangelical  dogma  as  beyond  dispute.  He 
was  Studying  for  the  ministry :  a  candidate  so 
suitable  might  be  allowed  to  Study  in  his  own 
way,  which  was  doubtless  God's  way,  being 
mysterious.  Henry  himself,  however,  when 
questioned  about  his  intentions,  was  rather  vague, 

6 


HENRY     DRUMMOND:     A     MYSTERY 

even  evasive.  The  ministry — yes,  of  course,  he 
was  Studying  for  the  ministry.  But  there  would 
be  a  note  of  hesitancy  in  his  voice,  suggesting 
that  at  the  back  of  his  mind  he  cherished  a  pious 
hope  that  Providence  had  something  better  in 
Store  for  him  than  the  dreary  round  of  a  pro- 
fessional parson.  Meanwhile  let  him  spend  his 
days  in  innocent  enjoyment.  Germany  was  an 
attradlive  idea.  It  had  become  the  fashion  in 
the  later  nineteenth  century  for  Scottish  theo- 
logical Students  to  go  for  a  season  to  Gottingen, 
Tubingen  or  Bonn,  juSt  as  in  the  eighteenth 
century  it  had  been  the  fashion  for  Scottish  law 
Students  to  go  to  Leyden  or  Utrecht.  Henry 
Drummond  had  friends  who  were  going  to 
Tubingen.  It  would  be  very  jolly  to  be  with 
them.  And  so  to  Tubingen  Henry  went.  His 
father  had  no  qualms.  Henry's  orthodoxy  would 
be  proof  againSt  the  virus  of  German  scepticism. 
Henry,  no  doubt,  was  of  the  same  confident 
opinion,  but  to  make  assurance  doubly  sure  he 
carefully  avoided  ledures.  This,  at  leaSt,  is  a 
fair  inference  from  the  fa6t  that  neither  of  the 
two  fellow-Students  (destined  to  be  lifelong 
intimates)  who  accompanied  him  was  ever  able 
to  say  what  courses  he  attended  or  what  were  his 
Studies.  We  do  know,  however,  that  he  was 
not  idle.  Henry  was  never  idle.  He  was  at 
pains  to  learn  good  Hoch-Deutschy  joined  a 
Studentsverein,  sang  songs,  drank  beer,  assisted 
at  duels,  made  himself  agreeable  to  Lutheran 

7 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

payors  and  discreetly  charming  to  Lutheran 
payors*  daughters,  and  went  with  German 
cronies  upon  expeditions  to  the  Black  Forest. 

On  his  return  from  Germany  in  the  autumn 
of  1873  Drummond  did  a  curious,  and  as  events 
proved,  a  very  significant  thing,  though  the 
significance  was  not  perceived  at  the  time.  He 
decided  to  suspend  his  theological  studies  for  a 
year  and  divide  his  time  between  natural  science 
and  mission  work  in  the  slums.  The  sudden 
change  of  plan  and  the  queer  assortment  of 
adivities  does  not  seem  to  have  excited  any 
comment.  It  was  ju§t  Henry  Drummond's  way 
and  another  example  of  his  constitutional  weak- 
ness for  always  finding  something  more  important 
than  the  business  in  hand.  But  Drummond  knew 
better.  He  had  got  the  fir§l  glimpse  of  his 
destiny. 

He  gave  a  revelation  of  his  mind  in  an  ad- 
dress which  he  delivered  as  president  of  the 
New  College  Theological  Society.  The  subje6t 
was  Spiritual  Diagnosis.  The  training  for  the 
ministry,  he  argued,  was  seriously  defeftive  in 
that  it  had  no  "clinical"  side.  The  pulpit,  no 
doubt,  had  its  place,  but  its  value  as  a  method  of 
saving  souls  was  limited  by  the  fa6i:  that  its  appeal 
was  to  the  mass,  whereas  souls  are  individuals. 
Preaching  was  easy,  "  but  to  draw  souls  one  by 
one,  to  buttonhole  them  and  take  from  them  the 
secret  of  their  lives,  to  talk  them  clear  out  of 
themselves,  to  read  them  off  like  a  page  of  print, 

8 


HENRY     DRUMMOND:     A     MYSTERY 

to  pervade  them  with  your  spiritual  essence  and 
make  them  transparent,  this  is  the  Spiritual 
Diagnosis  which  is  so  difficult  to  acquire  and  so 
hard  to  pradise  ".  Yet  in  this  difficult  and  para- 
mount task  of  his  calling  the  divinity  student 
received  no  syftematic  inSruftion,  for  the  simple 
reason  that  the  phenomena  of  the  spiritual  life 
had  never  been  the  sub j  eft  of  scientific  §tudy.  It 
was  essential,  therefore,  that  there  should  be  "  a 
spiritual  science  "  analogous  to  natural  science, 
an  induftive  Study  of  the  soul,  observing,  record- 
ing, diftinguishing,  classifying  and  relating  the 
phenomena  of  the  spiritual  life. 

It  is  said  by  one  who  was  present  on  the 
occasion  that  Drummond's  exposition  of  his 
thesis  "  eleftrified  us ",  which  may  fairly  be 
taken  to  mean  that  it  made  his  audience's  hair 
Stand  on  end.  Nobody  now  would  turn  even 
one  hair.  We  have  been  glutted  with  Stuff  of 
the  sort  by  Freud  and  others.  But  in  1873  Freud 
was  but  a  medical  Student  at  Vienna,  and  the  only 
people  who  dabbled  in  such  speculations  were 
Ritualistic  curates,  with  whom  Drummond  had 
no  acquaintance.  It  is  a  curious  coincidence  that 
at  the  very  moment  when  Drummond  was 
"  eleftrifying  "  the  serious  young  Scots  of  New 
College,  Edinburgh,  Samuel  Butler  in  the  shabby 
seclusion  of  CliiFord's  Inn  was  writing  The 
Way  of  All  Flesh,  and  telling  how  the  accom- 
plished rascal  Pryer  "  eleftrified  "  ErneSt  Pontifex 
in  the  same  way.     "  You  know,  my  dear  Pontifex, 

9 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

it  is  all  very  well  to  quarrel  with  Rome,  but  Rome 
has  reduced  the  treatment  of  the  human  soul  to 
a  science,  while  our  own  Church,  though  so 
much  purer  in  many  respefts,  has  no  organised 
system  either  of  diagnosis  or  pathology — ^I  mean, 
of  course,  spiritual  diagnosis  and  spiritual  patho- 
logy. .  .  .  The  history  of  all  ages  has  shown — 
and  surely  you  mu§t  know  this  as  well  as  I  do 
— that  as  men  cannot  cure  the  bodies  of  their 
patients  if  they  have  not  been  properly  trained 
in  hospitals  under  skilled  teachers,  so  neither 
can  souls  be  cured  of  their  hidden  ailments 
without  the  help  of  men  who  are  skilled  in  soul 
craft — or,  in  other  words,  of  priests." 

The  argument,  even  to  the  phrasing,  is  the 
same.  Buder,  as  a  satirist,  has  simply  added  the 
little  that  was  lacking  from  Dnmimond's  exposi- 
tion to  make  it  diabolical.  (Though  how  avidly, 
one  thinks,  would  Butler,  in  that  same  capacity 
of  satirist,  have  leapt  upon  the  Drummond  phrase 
of  "  buttonholing "  souls  !)  As  Drummond 
Stated  it  the  idea  was  wonderfully  attraftive,  and 
at  the  same  time  uncomfortable,  sinister,  even 
terrifying  to  yoimg  men  who  had  hitherto  im- 
plicitly accepted  the  decent  ProteStant  tradition 
that  the  soul  is  a  san«Siiary  to  which  God  alone 
has  the  right  of  access.  But  Henry  Drummond 
could  never  see  the  matter  in  that  light.  He  was 
conscious  of  no  taboo.  As  a  boy  in  his  teens  he 
had  defended  mesmerism  on  the  ground  that 
"  in  a  reasonable  imiverse  the  Creator  cannot 

lO 


HENRY     DRUMMOND:     A     MYSTERY 

have  isolated  men  from  each  other  nor  shut  each 
up  in  his  own  prison  body  ".  As  a  man  he 
could  not  conceive  of  any  soul  as  inviolable ; 
any  soul,  that  is,  but  his  own. 

Within  a  few  weeks  there  was  given  to 
Drummond  a  remarkable  opportunity  of  putting 
his  principles  into  praftice.  While  he  was  Still 
amusing  himself  in  Germany,  two  determined 
men,  Dwight  L.  Moody  and  Ira  D.  Sankey,  had 
sailed  from  America  to  Liverpool  to  convert 
Great  Britain  and  Ireland  to  Christianity.  Their 
outfit  for  the  enterprise  consisted  of  a  fair  amount 
of  sincere  religion,  a  good  deal  of  practical  insight, 
an  unlimited  Stock  of  assurance  and  an  harmonium. 
Owing  to  their  ignorance  of  the  terrain  their 
campaign  made  a  poor  Start.  They  toured  the 
North  of  England.  But  the  North  of  England 
was  peopled  by  men  of  tough  old  evangelical 
Stock  who  were  making  an  incredible  deal  of 
money  and  dictating  national  policy  accordingly. 
With  these  sure  tokens  that  God  was  with  them 
they  felt  no  need  to  let  their  hearts  be  troubled 
nor  to  have  their  souls  huStled  into  Heaven  by 
a  couple  of  smart  Yankee  drummers.  Only  a 
lucky  accident  saved  the  mission  from  an  early 
and  ignominious  failure.  Reaching  NewcaStle- 
on-Tyne  in  no  very  cheerful  mood  the  evangelists 
were  heard  by  an  impressionable  Scottish  minister 
who  persuaded  them  to  try  their  luck  across  the 
Border.  They  went  to  Edinburgh.  In  Edin- 
burgh they  "  made  good  ". 

II 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

The  sudden  change  of  fortune  was  remarkable, 
but  it  may  be  explained.  As  an  individual  the 
Scotsman  is  no  more— perhaps  less— religious 
than  the  Englishman,  but  in  the  mass  his  emotions 
are  far  more  easily  stirred.  Why  this  should  be 
is  not  clear,  but  the  mo§t  probable  reason  is  that, 
as  compared  with  England,  Scotland's  social  and 
political  culture  is  of  a  recent  and  rapid  growth. 
From  the  Union  of  the  Parliaments  Scotland  had 
to  compress  into  little  more  than  one  century  the 
progress  that  in  England  had  been  spread  over 
at  lea§t  three.  The  result  is  that  even  to  this  day 
Scotland  as  a  social  unit  is  much  less  ftable  than 
England  and  much  more  Hable  to  revert  to  the 
herd  movements  that  are  charafteri^tic  of  a  back- 
ward community.  Moody  and  Sankey  discovered 
this  in  1873,  ju§t  as  Mr.  Gladstone  was  to  discover 
it  to  the  great  advantage  of  his  party  when  he 
went  to  Midlothian  seven  years  later.  But  there 
was  another  reason,  or  rather  another  aspeft  of 
the  same  reason.  The  industrial  revolution  had 
brought  great  wealth  to  Scotland  as  to  England, 
but  the  spiritual  reaftion  was  not  the  same. 
England  was  inured  to  wealth.  Apart  from  the 
landed  interest  there  had  been  for  centuries  a 
rich  and  increasingly  influential  burgess  class 
who  were  very  much  on  the  side  of  the  angels. 
From  them  Puritanism  and  Nonconformity  drew 
their  political  Strength,  and  Cromwell's  triumph 
was  due  not  so  much  to  his  Ironsides  as  to  the 
fa£t  that  he  had  the  support  of  the  men  who 

12 


HENRY     DRUMMOND:     A     MYSTERY 

commanded  mo§t  of  the  liquid  assets  of  the 
country.  The  induftrial  revolution  and  the  great 
economic  expansion  of  the  Vidorian  era  inflated 
this  class  to  an  enormous  extent,  but  so  stable 
and  well  disciplined  was  the  English  social  order 
that  the  hordes  of  industrial  parvenm  accepted 
without  question  the  ethic  of  the  class  they  had 
invaded,  viz.  that  material  prosperity  was  the 
sure  mark  of  a  good  man,  whence,  by  a  bad 
but  very  human  logic,  it  followed  that  poverty 
was  at  lea§t  Strong  presumptive  evidence  of 
depravity. 

The  case  of  Scotland  was  different.  Prior  to 
the  industrial  revolution  the  country  had  not  only 
been  backward  but  Stricken  with  poverty  to  a 
degree  that  is  hard  to  conceive  nowadays.  The 
nobility,  to  preserve  the  outward  decencies  of 
life,  had  no  resource  but  to  sell  themselves  to 
one  or  other  of  the  English  political  faftions,  and 
this  they  did  without  scruple.  The  burgess  class 
was  small,  feeble  and  pusillanimous.  The  burden 
of  the  Struggle  with  the  Crown  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  which  in  England  was  borne  by  the  rich 
bourgeoisie,  in  Scotland  fell  upon  the  peasantry 
and  lesser  gentry,  who  having  neither  goods  to 
lose  nor  bribeworthy  service  to  offer  had  no 
option  but  to  be  poor  and  honeSt.  Hence  it 
came  about  that  the  same  kind  of  "  saintliness  " 
which  in  England  was  associated  with  affluence 
was  in  Scottish  tradition  associated  with  penury  ; 
and  even  those  who,  like  Burns,  discarded  con- 

13 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

ventional  religion,  were  Still  apt  to  treat  the  higher 
moral  virtues  as  a  monopoly  of  the  poor. 

The  industrial  revolution,  therefore,  was  very 
upsetting  to  Scottish  ethics.    It  made  a  cynical 
mockery  of  the  old  boaSt  of  "  honeSt  poverty  ". 
How,  imder  the  new  order,  could  poverty  be 
honest?    It  was  the  rich,  not  the  poor,  who 
pradised  the  Sturdy  virtues  and  were  zealous  for 
pure  religion  ;  it  was  the  poor,  not  the  rich,  who 
were   vicious    and   imgodly.     To   the    English 
middle-classes  this  was  a  platitude,  and  they  could 
contemplate  the  ugliness  of  industrialism  with 
equanimity  and  even  undion.     But  to  the  newly 
enriched  Scots  it  was  a  bewildering  paradox. 
They  had  to  believe  the  evidence  of  their  senses, 
but  they  could  not  be  comfortable  about  it. 
Their  scruples  were  not  such  as  to  make  them 
pause  in  their  money -making — their  diligence 
in  that  regard  has  become  proverbial — nor  did 
they  feel  that  they  were  in  any  way  to  blame  for 
the  deStrudion  of  bodies  and  souls  that  was 
entailed  in  the  syStem  by  which  they  were  enriched. 
But  they  did  feel  that  some  adjustment  sub  Specie 
aeternitath  was  required.     With  that  objed  they 
became  very  earnest  about  spiritual  things,  the 
argument  being  that  an  increase  of  religion  among 
the  industrial  rich  would  in  the  sight  of  God  be 
a  set-oflFto  the  excessive  sinfulness  of  the  industrial 
poor.     It  was  obvious,  too,  that  in  order  to 
present    a    satisfadory    balance-sheet    to    the 
Almighty  it  was  necessary  not  only  to  increase 

14 


HENRY     DRUMMOND:     A     MYSTERY 

the  community's  reserves  of  godliness  but  to 
efFeft  sub^antial  economies  on  the  sin  account — 
that  is  to  say  the  poor  mu§t  have  the  Gospel 
preached  to  them.  This  attitude  of  mind  was 
already  prevalent  among  the  Scottish  moneyed- 
classes  in  the  'thirties,  and  Thomas  Chalmers 
made  full  use  of  it  for  his  social  projefts.  In 
1843,  however,  the  Disruption  of  the  Scottish 
Church  diverted  the  energies  of  Chalmers  and 
his  coterie  into  a  less  profitable  channel.  Thence- 
forward the  merchants  and  manufacturers  were 
direded  that  their  fir§t  duty  to  God  was  to  pro- 
vide Scotland  with  a  Free  Church  and  to  sign 
cheques  accordingly,  which  they  did  without 
Stint.  But  as  a  religious  exercise  the  signing  of 
cheques  has  limitations.  Like  the  wearing  of  a 
hair  shirt  it  argues  but  does  not  create  en- 
thusiasm, and  after  nearly  a  generation  of  it  the 
middle-classes  felt  the  need  of  something  more. 
Even  in  the  pulpit  there  was  a  growing  suspicion 
that  Standard  Calvinism  highly  spiced  with  abuse 
of  the  EStablishmentarian  "  rump  "  was  losing 
its  virtue  and  that  a  new  source  of  fervour  was 
much  to  be  desired.  It  was  at  this  lucky  moment 
that  Moody  and  Sankey  arrived.  They  supplied 
what  was  wanted,  and  the  middle-classes  heard 
them  gladly.  As  for  the  clerical  leaders  of  the 
Free  Church,  these  handled  the  situation  with  a 
cynical  prudence  worthy  of  the  best  traditions 
of  ecclesiastical  Statecraft.  They  might  dislike 
Moody's    theology ;     they    certainly    deteSted 

15 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

Sankey's  hymns  and  harmonium ;  but  they  were 
astute  enough  to  discern  the  signs  of  the  times 
and  to  perceive  therein  the  possible  benefit  to 
what  lay  nearest  their  hearts.  Hostility  or  even 
indifference  to  the  movement  would  be  dangerous, 
whereas  judicious  exploitation  might  be  of  the 
greatest  advantage  to  the  beloved  Church.  And 
as  Moody  and  Sankey  were  not  only  willing  but 
eager  to  work  through  ecclesia^ical  channels,  it 
was  obvious  that  the  parties  could  deal.  Thus 
the  tacit  bargain  was  struck.  The  Free  Church 
lent  its  organisation,  whereby  the  Yankee  evangel- 
ists got  enough  way  on  to  carry  them  in  triumph 
through  the  formerly  apathetic  English  provinces 
even  to  the  goal  of  London  itself.  And  in  return 
the  Free  Chuxch  enjoyed  an  access  of  zeal  among 
the  laity  that  Stabilised  the  financial  position 
for  another  generation.  Incidentally  souls  were 
saved.  The  completed  manoeuvre  stood  in  need 
of  no  greater  justification  than  that  usually 
accorded  to  wisdom  by  her  children. 

Drummond,  of  course,  had  no  such  motive, 
but  he  was  in  the  movement  from  the  first.  As 
soon  as  Moody  and  Sankey  arrived  in  Edinburgh 
he  offered  his  services  and  was  accepted  as  a 
worker.  For  nearly  two  years  he  was  their  moSt 
valued  assistant.  Studies  were  firSt  abandoned, 
then  forgotten.  He  toured  the  United  Kingdom 
with  the  Great  Mission.  His  father,  whose 
wonted  indulgence  was  now  fortified  with 
admiration  and  thankfulness  to  God,  suppHed 

i6 


HENRY     DRUMMOND:     A     MYSTERY 

the  necessary  funds — ^for  Henry  could  hardly 
ever  be  prevailed  upon  to  dip  his  fingers  into 
the  evangeli^s'  hat.     He  would  go  short  rather. 
"  I  shall  ride  once  more  upon  a  'bus,"  he  wrote 
from  London  acknowledging  a  handsome  remit- 
tance, "  and  pay  my  way  like  a  man  and  a  Drum- 
mond."    And  this  was  not  merely  Scotch  pride  ; 
it  was  an  example  of  that  social  fastidiousness 
which  was  perhaps  Drummond's  mo§t  obvious 
charaderiStic.     Sir  George  Adam  Smith  does  not 
exaggerate  in  claiming  that  he  might  have  been 
model  for  Steele's  celebrated  portrait  of  "  a  fine 
gentleman ".     It  seems  Strange,  therefore,  that 
this  same  fine  and  fastidious  young  gentleman 
should  have  found  it  possible  not  only  to  be 
associated  with  but  to  take  a  prominent  part  in 
a  movement  that,  even  with  due  allowance  for 
merits,  was  crude,  blatant  and  in  some  of  its 
aspeds   disgusting.     Sentiments   of  which   Mr. 
Jefferson  Brick  and  the  WatertoaSt  Sympathisers 
would  not  have  been  ashamed  garnished  Mr. 
Moody's  preaching  of  the  Gospel,  while  Mr. 
Sankey's  singing  of  the  same  was  an  outrage  of 
which  it  is  difficult  to  speak  with  moderation. 
To  suppose  that  religious  zeal  rendered  Drum- 
mond  oblivious  of  these  immundicities,  to  pifture 
him  as  swept  away  in  the  furious  current  of 
general  emotion,  is  to  ignore  the  ascertained 
fads.    Neither  Moody  nor  anybody  else  ever 
"  converted "  Drummond.     We  have  his  own 
word  for  it  that  he  never  experienced  a  religious 

17  c 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

crisis,  and  he  was  quite  complacent  about  what 
he  evidently  regarded  as  a  fortunate  immunity. 
We  know  also  that  the  mission  offended  his 
ta^te  in  many  ways.  It  is  certain  that  if  Moody 
and  Sankey  had  been  ordinary  revivalists,  depend- 
ing solely  on  the  mass  appeal  and  va§t  disorderly 
noisy  meetings,  Drummond  would  not  have 
waited  a  day  on  them.  But  Moody  not  only 
kept  his  great  meetings  comparatively  quiet  but 
had  a  new  invention.  This  was  the  "inquiry- 
room  ",  wherein  souls  that  had  been  awakened 
by  the  mass  appeal  could  be  dealt  with  individu- 
ally. To  those  who  disliked  the  mission  this  was 
the  mo§t  objedionable  feature  of  all.  To  Drum- 
mond, who  like  many  fastidious  people  had  very 
little  sensibility,  it  was  really  the  only  thing  that 
mattered.  It  was  a  school  in  which  he  could 
perfect  himself  in  "  spiritual  diagnosis  " — a  rough 
school,  no  doubt,  but  the  only  one  available. 
The  teachers  were  no  better  than  horse-doftors, 
but  much  may  be  learned  from  a  good  horse- 
doftor  by  an  adive  young  man  of  scientific  habit. 
And  the  clinical  material  was  good  and  abundant. 
Such  was  the  spirit  in  which  Drummond  joined 
Moody  and  Sankey.  It  lacked  ardour,  but  that 
was  soon  supplied.  Once  the  initial  nausea  was 
over  evangelising  became  less  and  less  a  scientific 
pursuit  and  more  and  more  an  exciting  game. 
Being  a  fisher  of  men  is  great  sport ;  at  leaSt,  so 
Drummond  found  it.  One  muSt  bear  in  mind 
his  method.    Others  might  handle  the  miraculous 

i8 


HENRY     DRUMMOND:     A     MYSTERY 

draughts  that  broke  the  nets  and  wellnigh 
swamped  the  boat.  He  himself  (adept  fly-fisher 
from  boyhood)  ca§t  for  the  individual  fish,  played 
him,  grassed  him  in  triumph,  caft  his  fly  again, 
and  never  went  deeper  than  he  could  wade.  The 
fish,  ancient  symbol  of  mystery  and  divinity, 
dweller  in  the  element  that  is  at  once  life  and 
death,  shining,  swift  and  subtle — animula,  vagula^ 
hlandula — that  was  Drummond's  image  of  the 
soul.  To  exchange  the  role  of  fisherman  for 
that  of  shepherd,  to  see  souls  as  silly  sheep — 
symbols  of  vacuity  and  sacrifice,  with  himself 
under  the  spreading  beech  piping  feebly  twice 
each  Sabbath  day  while  the  creatures  browsed — 
the  thought  was  intolerable. 

So  it  was  with  some  difficulty  that  Henry  was 
dissuaded  from  following  Moody  and  Sankey  to 
America  and  committing  himself  to  the  career 
of  a  trolling  evangelist.  Rather  dolefully  he 
returned  to  New  College,  Hebrew,  Church 
history.  Christian  apologetics  and  systematic 
theology.  No  doubt  it  was  with  a  bitter  pang 
that  he  read  in  these  shades  of  the  prison-house 
Moody's  ardess  appeal  that  came  to  him  from 
Philadelphia  at  the  end  of  the  year.  "  Could  you 
come  over  and  help  us  ?  We  want  you  much, 
and  will  see  that  all  expenses  are  paid.  I  think 
you  would  get  a  few  thousand  souls  on  these 
shores."  He  did  not  go.  When  nearly  four 
years  later  he  paid  his  firSt  visit  to  America  his 
mission  had  nothing  to  do  with  souls. 

19 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

There   were   three   men   whose   converging 
influences    during   this    period    determined    the 
pecuHar  course  of  Drummond's  hfe.     Moody, 
as  we  have  seen,  was  one.     Another  was  Marcus 
Dods,  Robertson  Smith's  friend  and  nearly  his 
fellow-martyr.     The  third  was  Geikie.     Whether 
Drummond  ever  realised  the  extent  of  his  debt 
to  his  master  in  science  is  doubtful.     His  admira- 
tion for  Moody — it  amounted  almost   to    an 
infatuation — left  him  with  little  to   spare  for 
others.    Yet  Geikie's  influence  was  ju§t  the  whole- 
some bracing  thing  he  mo§t  needed,   whereas 
Moody's  from  the  beginning  had  as  much  bane 
as  benefit  in  it,  and  by  the  time  the  great  Mission 
came  to  an  end  it  was  positively  demoralising. 
It  unsettled  him  for  serious  §tudy  and  instilled 
the  pernicious  idea  that  a  man  of  his  parts  and 
charm  could  live  very  well  and  religiously  on  his 
wits.     The  result  was  that  Drummond's  la^  year 
at  New  College  was  probably  the  moft  unhappy 
season  of  his  life.     He  was  imwilling  to  enter 
the  ministry,  but  could  see  no  alternative.     It 
was  mainly  due  to  Geikie  that  his  troubles  were 
brought  to  an  end.     In  1877  a  ledureship  in 
Natural  Science  at  the  Glasgow  Free  Church 
College  fell  vacant.     For  a  man  who  could  write 
nothing  after  his  name,  except  "B.Sc.  (failed)", 
to  apply  for  such  a  po§t  required  some  courage, 
but  ju§t  then  Drummond  had  the  courage  of 
despair.     He  appealed  to  Geikie  for  help.    Geikie 
gave  it  so  enthusiastically  that  Drummond  was 

20 


HENRY     DRUMMOND:     A     MYSTERY 

appointed.  From  that  day  his  life  was  an  un- 
broken record  of  happiness  and  success.  His 
luck  in  getting  the  ledureship  was,  perhaps, 
better  than  he  deserved.  The  pay  was  not  great, 
but  it  was  more  than  the  Stipend  of  many  a 
grey-headed  country  minister.  The  duties  were 
absurdly  light,  viz.  four  simple  leftures  a  week 
during  a  session  of  five  months  and  the  re^  of 
the  year  to  follow  his  pleasure  in  travel  and 
preaching.  Then,  in  the  summer  of  1879,  Geikie 
did  him  another  signal  service  by  choosing  him 
as  his  assistant  in  a  geological  expedition  to  the 
Rockies.  This  experience  was  invaluable  to 
Drummond  in  two  ways.  It  gave  him  a  pradical 
knowledge  of  scientific  exploration  and  thus 
qualified  him  for  the  important  commission  for 
which  he  was  seleded  a  few  years  later — the 
exploration  of  the  Nyasa  and  Tanganyika  region 
on  behalf  of  the  African  Lakes  Corporation. 
But,  Still  better,  it  provided  a  spiritual  discipline 
and  correftive  that  he  badly  needed,  taking  his 
mind  out  of  the  Stuffy  atmosphere  of  the  inquiry- 
room  into  God's  fresh  air.  His  diary  of  the 
expedition  breathes  a  spirit  of  enjoyment  that  is 
much  more  wholesome  than  the  feverish  delight 
of  his  letters  during  the  Moody  campaign.  There 
is  no  refleftion,  nothing  but  disjointed  notes  of 
hard  fafts  registered  by  a  very  sharp  young  mind. 
"Fishing,  caught  a  two -and -a -half-pounder, 
sluggish,  not  game.  .  .  .  Came  to  log  shanty. 
Store  for  miners,  got  gold  specimen  from  miner 

21 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

in  next  shanty ;  a  ranch  burned  by  Indians  two 
years  ago.  .  .  .  Presently  the  magnificent  buck 
dashed  pa§t  at  full  speed — flying  shot,  mu§t  have 
missed.  Fired  at  a  doe  coming  behind — mu§t 
have  struck  her  originally  as,  although  Jack  fired 
at  her,  three  bullets  were  in  her  when  she  dropped. 
Jack  had  shot  another  through  the  forelegs, 
which  I  killed  with  my  revolver.  During  the 
retreat  Jack  surprised  a  second  herd,  and  killed 
one  more.  Total,  four  antelopes — all  does." 
From  which  it  appears  that  Drummond,  like  many 
excellent  men,  was  a  keen  and  callous  hunter. 
In  killing  or  maiming  any  wild  creature  he  was 
as  merciless  as  any  primitive  man,  and  then,  in 
the  plenitude  of  his  modernity,  he  would  scribble 
a  little  note  on  "  tenacity  of  life  ",  from  personal 
experiences  that  he  at  any  rate  did  not  find 
repellent.  Still,  deer-§talking  is  great  sport  for 
a  healthy  young  man,  especially  if  it  diverts  his 
mind  from  such  dubious  occupations  as  "  button- 
holing souls  ",  and  there  is  nothing  pleasanter 
about  Drummond*s  record  of  the  expedition  to 
the  Rockies  than  its  freedom  from  his  former 
preoccupation.  A  letter  to  his  mother,  when  he 
was  in  the  heart  of  Colorado,  contains  what  is 
praftically  the  only  reference  to  a  religious  matter 
—  a  charafteriStically  lively  and  light-hearted 
account  of  a  funeral.  (Death,  whether  in  man 
or  bea§t,  never  worried  him ;  he  could  write  of 
the  death  of  his  dearest  friend  with  exquisite 
propriety  but  ahno§t  as  coolly  as  he  records  the 

22 


HENRY     DRUMMOND:     A     MYSTERY 

slaying  of  an  antelope  or  wildebeest.)  A  miner 
had  died  at  a  diftant  camp,  and  Drummond,  as  the 
nearest  thing  to  a  minister  within  a  hundred  miles 
or  so,  consented  to  officiate  in  uncanonical 
tweeds  redeemed  by  a  white  tie  bought  at  the 
local  Store  "  which  gave  me  a  sufficiently  pro- 
fessional look  for  the  mountains  ".  As  might 
be  expefted,  he  rose  to  the  occasion  brilliantly. 
The  funeral  oration  was  such  that  the  camp 
clamoured  for  more,  and  he  was  not  the  man  to 
disoblige  them.  A  second  and  moSt  exhilarating 
diet  of  worship  was  held,  after  which  the  miners 
gave  him  tea  and  dismissed  him  in  friendly  fashion 
"  loaded  with  specimens  of  gold  ".  This  was 
all  very  harmless,  but  when  he  reached  Boston 
on  his  journey  home  a  noHalgie  de  la  houe  seized 
him.  He  muSt  needs  dash  off  to  see  Moody  and 
Sankey  at  Cleveland,  where  he  found  things  going 
on  in  the  same  old  way  that  had  delighted  him 
in  Scotland  and  England — "  perishing  men  and 
women  finding  their  way  to  prayer-meeting, 
Bible-reading  and  inquiry-room  ".  To  get  this 
gratifying  intelligence  and  to  find  that  Moody's 
collar  was  Still  in  a  chronic  State  of  crush  and  that 
Sankey's  black  necktie  was  as  faultless  as  ever, 
he  refused  an  invitation  to  meet  Longfellow  and 
Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  at  dinner. 

Nevertheless,  the  knowledge  that  the  good 
work  was  going  on  in  the  good  old  way  seems 
to  have  been  enough  for  him,  for  he  gave  no 
sign  of  any  disposition  to  Stay  in  America  and 

23 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

take  part  in  it.  Moody  and  Sankey  were  all 
very  well  in  1873  ;  they  served  their  turn,  and 
Drummond  was  eternally  obliged  to  them.  But 
he  was  some  critical  years  older  now,  and,  though 
he  would  hardly  have  admitted  it  even  to  him- 
self, his  visit  to  Cleveland  probably  gave  him  a 
hint  that  he  had  grown  a  bit  and  that  Moody-and- 
Sankeyism  as  a  spiritual  garment  was  getting 
rather  tight  about  the  che§t :  a  rising  young  man 
of  science  mu§t  have  room  to  breathe.  Further, 
though  Drummond*s  mind  was  essentially  limited 
and  unadventurous,  his  spirit  was  bold,  uncon- 
ventional and  intolerant  of  interference.  He 
liked  his  own  way  and  usually  he  got  it.  He  had 
refused  to  settle  down  to  a  regular  ministry  be- 
cause it  would  have  involved  his  accommodating 
himself  to  other  men ;  later,  as  we  shall  see,  he 
refused  to  enter  politics  for  the  same  reason ; 
and  much  as  he  loved  Moody,  he  would  not  be 
his  underling.  Drummond  was  not  of  the  Stuff 
of  which  disciples  are  made.  In  the  circum- 
stances he  was  well  content  to  take  an  affedionate 
farewell  of  his  old  friends,  wish  them  the  beSt  of 
luck  and  hapten  back  to  Glasgow  where,  a  year 
before,  he  had  found  an  outlet  for  his  evangelising 
zeal  that  was  much  more  to  his  taSte  than  any- 
thing he  saw  at  Cleveland. 

It  was  associated,  too,  with  the  personality 
that  had  begim  to  supplant  Moody  in  his  regard, 
Marcus  Dods,  then  minister  of  Renfield  Church, 
Glasgow,  and  afterwards  professor  of  New  TeSta- 

24 


HENRY     DRUMMOND:     A     MYSTERY 

ment  Exegesis  at  New  College.  That  on  settling 
in  Glasgow  Drummond  should  have  elefted  to 
"  sit  under  "  a  notorious  modernist  like  Dods 
and  become  one  of  his  elders  and  his  bosom 
friend  at  the  very  time  when  a  heresy  libel  was 
being  framed  against  him  was  the  fir§t  indication 
of  the  new  phase  that  within  a  few  years  was  to 
make  the  name  of  Henry  Drummond  famous 
throughout  the  English-speaking  world.  Of  this 
there  will  be  something  to  say  presently.  To 
begin  with,  Drummond's  attachment  to  Dods  was 
not  so  much  due  to  intelledual  considerations  as 
to  the  fad  that  Dods  was  able  to  offer  him  the 
plaything  he  coveted,  which,  as  he  expressed  it, 
was  "  a  quiet  mission  somewhere,  entry  imme- 
diate and  self-contained  ".  (The  stipulation  "  self- 
contained  "  is  significant — no  irksome  contacts 
with  neighbours.)  This  was  a  mission-Station 
which  Dod's  congregation  had  established  in 
the  Possilpark  district — a  peculiarly  doleful  corner 
of  the  vineyard  that  would  have  broken,  or  at 
least  dulled,  the  spirit  of  the  general  run  of  the 
Lord's  labourers.  But  Drummond,  who  to  his 
last  painful  breath  was  a  perfe6i;  Mark  Tapley, 
spent  four  unconquerably  jolly  years  there.  He 
worked  hard,  experimented  a  good  deal  and  made 
his  mission  a  brilliant  success.  From  this  it  muSt 
not  be  inferred  that  he  had  any  warm  feeling  for 
poor  men  as  such,  any  more  than  he  had  for  black 
men  when  he  left  Possilpark  and  went  to  Central 
Africa.     Both  had  their  places  in  the  Divine 

2-5 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

order,  widely  different  no  doubt,  but  so  remote 
from  Henry  Drummond's  place  that  the  difference 
was  negligible.  Although  his  experience  did 
ultimately  make  him  realise  that  poverty  is  a 
social  problem  and  not  merely  a  disagreeable 
accident  of  individual  lives,  the  moral  aspeft  of 
the  question  never  troubled  him.  From  his  point 
of  view,  which  was  the  point  of  view  of  the  ordi- 
nary comfortable  Viftorian,  poverty  was  bad 
because  it  put  the  poor  man's  soul  in  peril ;  but 
souls  could  always  be  saved  by  liberal  doses  of 
the  Gospel,  so  why  worry  about  the  poverty  ? 
When  this  comfortable  doftrine  was  put  to  the 
te§t  of  a  hard  winter  in  Possilpark  and  came  out 
of  it  badly,  Drummond's  reaftion  was  merely  one 
of  mild  petulance.  "  Thousands  have  been  really 
Starving,"  he  wrote  early  in  1879,  "  and  out  here 
I  have  had  to  feed  scores  of  families  with  the  meat 
that  perisheth  and  a  scant  seasoning  only  of  the 
other."  Here  was  no  diagnosing  of  maladies  of 
the  soul,  only  the  filling  of  healthy,  hungry 
bellies.  Divine  Providence  can  be  very  trying 
at  times.  Fortunately,  Drummond  was  far  too 
good-natured  to  allow  mere  petulance  to  get  the 
better  of  him,  and  above  all  he  had  that  boyish 
genius  for  play  and  leadership  in  the  lighter 
things  of  life  of  which  Mark  Twain  has  given  the 
perfeft  pifture  in  Tom  Sawyer.^    No  matter  what 

*  Drummond  met  Mark  Twain  at  Hartford,  Conn.,  in  1887,  and 
recognised  a  kindred  soul,  though  his  manner  of  noting  the  event 
had  a  disconcerting  touch  of  Scotch  Philistinism,  "  He  is  funnier 
than  any  of  his  books,  and,  to  my  surprise  (sic),  is  a  mo5t  respefted 

26 


HENRY     DRUMMOND:     A     MYSTERY 

the  circumstances  were,  city  slum  or  country- 
house  party,  he  could  always  get  people  interested 
in  the  game  that  was  on,  and  it  was  always  a  game 
of  his  choosing.  In  Possilpark  the  game  was  so 
successful  that  at  the  end  of  four  years  the  mission- 
Station  was  ready  to  be  raised  to  the  Status  of  a 
full  charge. 

This  happy  result  having  been  achieved, 
Drummond  retired  and  looked  about  for  a  change 
of  scene.  In  1885  Moody  and  Sankey  conduced 
their  second  mission  in  Great  Britain,  which  was 
a  very  damp  affair.  Drummond  dutifully  assisted 
them,  but  could  hardly  conceal  his  boredom  with 
the  whole  business.  In  his  own  queer  way  he 
had  been  reflefting  during  the  laSt  four  years, 
which  so  pleased  him  that  he  had  written  a  book 
about  it  that  was  even  then  in  the  press.  With  a 
journalistic  perception  of  the  signs  of  the  time 
worthy  of  a  NorthclifFe  he  had  solemnly  labelled 
it  Natural  haw  in  the  Spiritual  World.  It  was,  as  he 
always  protested,  only  a  sort  of  a  book,  quite  a 
good  sort,  of  course,  but  Still  only  a  sort — ^the 
kind  of  thing  that  one  does  not  plan  but  which 
juSt  happens.  He  has  left  a  vivacious  account  of 
its  origins  which,  though  it  muSt  not  be  taken  as 
serious  history — Drummond  was  a  born  raconteur 
and  his  Stories  loSt  nothing  in  the  telling — is  true 
to  this  extent,  that  the  author  hardly  anticipated 
more  from  it  than  a  young  man's  pleasure  at 

citizen  devoted  to  things  aesthetic,  and  the  friend  of  the  poor  and 
Struggling." 

27 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

seeing  his  name  on  a  title  page  for  the  fir§t  time. 
There  was  also,  perhaps,  a  touch  of  pique  in  his 
anxiety  to  get  his  "  Sunday  talks  to  working  men  " 
into  book  form.  At  the  Glasgow  College  he 
foimd  himself  among  men  Hke  T.  M.  Lindsay 
and  A.  B.  Bruce  ^ — men  of  commanding  intelled 
and  formidable  scholarship.  He  liked  his  col- 
leagues and  he  knew  that  they  liked  him,  but  he 
also  knew  that  they  did  not  like  his  evangelistic 
antecedents  and  that  they  did  not  take  him  very 
seriously  as  a  teacher,  which  vexed  him.  The 
prevailing  sentiment  at  the  College  was  an  ad- 
vanced, though  not  aggressive  liberaUsm,  which 
Drummond  absorbed  with  a  facility  that  in  a 
more  intelledual  man  would  scarce  have  been 
honest.  His  own  explanation  of  his  change  of 
outlook  is  as  jaunty  and  vague  as  Topsy*s  "  'specks 
I  growed  " ;  for  all  its  choice  scientific  diftion 
amounts  to  no  more.  The  expert  in  "  spiritual 
diagnosis  "  never  seems  to  have  had  the  mo^ 
elementary  knowledge  of  the  physiology  of  his 
own  spirit.  That,  however,  did  not  occur  to 
him,  and  consequently  did  not  trouble  him.  His 
main  concern  was  to  prove  that  he  could  be  as 
good  a  theological  liberal  as  anyone,  and  could 
go  one  better  than  mo§t  theological  liberals  by 
propoimding  a  conStrudive  philosophy  of  re- 
ligion. It  is  a  notorious  conceit  of  every  village- 
bred  Scotsman  that  he  is  a  born  philosopher,  and 

*  Professor   of  Christian   Apologetics,    Gifford    lefturer   at   the 
University  of  Glasgow,  1897-98. 

28 


HENRY     DRUMMOND:     A     MYSTERY 

Drummond  was  full  of  it.  The  fad  that  he  had 
never  shown  any  serious  interest  in  or  aptitude  for 
philosophic  Studies  did  not  daunt  him,  for  he 
despised  the  philosophy  of  the  schools.  The 
pupil  of  Moody  and  Sankey  was  all  for  Huxley 
and  Tyndall  and  the  scientific  cock-a-whoopery 
of  his  generation.  Consequently,  when  candid 
friends  told  Drummond  that  the  "  philosophy  " 
of  Natural  Lmw  was  mostly  nonsense,  he  was  not 
in  the  leaSt  impressed :  they  were  mere  school- 
men to  whom  the  truth  had  not  been  revealed. 
Later,  it  is  true,  he  was  constrained  to  admit  that 
on  the  whole  they  were  right,  but  his  faith  in  his 
mission  as  a  philosopher  of  reUgion  remained  un- 
shaken to  the  end. 

Who  can  blame  him  ?  Looking  at  what  befell 
in  1884,  1885  and  1886  one  marvels  rather  at  the 
humility  of  his  claim.  He  had  no  apoStolic 
dreams  when  he  let  down  his  net,  only  a  boyish 
ambition.  And  lo,  the  miraculous  draught  that 
broke  the  net  and  weighed  down  the  vessel ! 

As  it  happened,  when  Natural  'Law  in  the 
Spiritual  World  was  published  in  June  1883, 
Drummond  had  a  new  enterprise  to  interest  him, 
and  hardly  gave  a  thought  to  the  book  or  its  fate. 
The  African  Lakes  Corporation,  which  was  con- 
trolled by  a  syndicate  of  Glasgow  merchants,  had 
commissioned  him  at  very  short  notice  to  make 
a  scientific  survey  of  the  Nyasa  and  Tanganyika 
region.  Before  the  firSt  reviews  of  Natural  haw 
appeared  he  was  Steaming  down  the  Red  Sea  in 

*9 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

high  spirits  at  the  prospeft  of  an  adventure  which 
combined  so  many  agreeable  features.  He  was 
his  own  master ;  the  scientific  work  he  had  to  do 
was  responsible  but  within  his  compass,  and  he 
did  it  conscientiously  and  well ;  there  were  Free 
Church  mission-stations  where  he  could  find 
and  give  spiritual  refreshment ;  and  there  were 
swarms  of  wild  things  to  shoot.  As  to  this  la§t 
there  is  a  charafteri^tic  note  in  his  diary.  "  Moir 
and  Lieutenant  PuUy  went  off  to  shoot  elephants 
at  Kimbashi.  Much  tempted  to  go  with  them. 
.  .  .  They  sent  eighteen  tmks  hack^,  capital  sport." 
Three  weeks  after  writing  these  words  the  dis- 
appointed Nimrod  had  something  more  exciting 
than  the  slaughter  of  elephants  to  think  about. 
The  first  mails  since  he  had  left  home  five  months 
before  reached  him  near  Nyasa.  They  told  him 
that  Natural  Law  in  the  Spiritual  World  was  a 
clamorous  success,  that  reviewers  were  outreach- 
ing  one  another  in  pasans  of  praise  over  it,  that 
within  a  few  weeks  of  publication  this  his  com- 
pilation of  Sunday  Talks  to  Working  Men  had 
already  gone  into  a  second  edition  and  none 
could  tell  how  many  more  would  be  called  for, 
as  the  sales  were  increasing  every  day.  It  was 
one  of  Drummond's  gifts  that  he  could  take  great 
good  fortune  calmly,  indeed  as  of  his  right,  but 
he  admits  that  he  lay  awake  that  night.  Apart 
from  that  the  only  comment  on  the  news  in  his 
diary  is  a  Pepysian  "  which  surprised  me  ",  with 
reference  to  the  Spectator's  review.     And  well  it 

30 


HENRY     DRUMMOND:     A     MYSTERY 

might  surprise  even  him ;  for  upon  such  a 
book  as  his  the  verdift  of  R.  H.  Hutton's  organ 
was  treated  by  the  men  of  the  'eighties  as  final. 
The  oracle  had  placed  him  among  the  seers 
and  he  could  hail  the  future  with  the  exulting 
cry,  **  sublimi  feriam  sidera  vertice".  He  returned 
home  in  triumph  ju§t  in  time  for  the  General 
Assembly  of  1884,  which  raised  the  ledureship  in 
Natural  Science  to  the  dignity  of  a  chair  and 
eleded  him  professor  by  acclamation.  Fate, 
which  produces  many  a  good  play  very  badly, 
had  been  in  a  happy  mood  over  Henry  Drummond. 
He  Stepped  into  the  limelight  Straight  from  darkest 
Africa.  (Not  that  anybody  talks  of  Darkest 
Africa — or  indeed  of  darkest  anything  nowadays. 
The  phrase  was  killed  by  the  savage  humour  of 
William  Booth  with  his  DarkeH  England,  and  in 
any  case  could  not  have  survived  some  of  the 
European  incidents  since  Drummond's  day,  but 
in  the  'eighties  and  early  'nineties  it  had  a 
glamour.) 

What  follows  constitutes  a  problem  well  cal- 
culated to  interest  the  so-called  Student  of  human 
nature,  for  there  is  no  solution  to  it.  There  is 
no  mystery  about  the  success  of  Natural  Law.  It 
was  not  a  great  book — ^few  beSt  sellers  are — but 
it  had  qualities,  and  the  public  that  bought 
it  showed  more  intelligence  than  did  the  public 
that  bought,  say.  Proverbial  Philosophy  or  Fefius. 
Above  all,  it  was  opportune.  But  it  does  not 
explain  Drummond's  personal  vogue  as  a  fashion- 

31 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

able  religious  teacher.  It  was  merely  the  trumpet 
or  drum  that  announced  the  show.  The  show 
was  Drummond  himself,  and  a  mo§t  remarkable 
show  it  mu§t  have  been  that  could  take  a  ducal 
mansion  in  Mayfair  for  its  booth  and  crowd  a 
great  ball-room  on  three  successive  Sundays  in 
the  height  of  the  season.  For  that  is  what  Henry 
Drummond  did  in  April  and  May  1885,  and  it 
declares  at  once  the  Strength  and  the  weakness  of 
the  man  that  he  was  prevailed  upon  to  do  it.  He 
was  incapable  of  anything  so  blatant  as  conceiving 
the  idea  of  a  "  mission  "  to  the  We§t  End  of 
London,  but  he  could  not,  once  it  was  made, 
resist  the  suggestion.  It  came  from  Lord  Aber- 
deen, one  of  the  many  new  and  influential  friends 
that  Drummond  owed  to  Natural  haw^  and  took 
the  form  of  a  proposal  for  a  series  of  "  ledhires  ". 
A  vain  man  would  have  been  flattered  by  it  into 
a  haSty  and  effusive  acceptance ;  a  modeSt  man 
would  have  refused  even  to  consider  it;  but 
Drummond  was  neither  vain  nor  modeSt.  He 
parleyed  with  Lord  Aberdeen  on  the  subjed  with 
a  sang-froid  and  assurance  that  would  argue  pro- 
found astuteness  were  they  not  also  consistent 
with  an  extreme  degree  of  simplicity.  He  would 
not  say  no,  but  there  were  difficulties.  He  was 
fully  occupied  with  a  religious  movement  among 
Students  which  had  shown  all  the  siens  of  beinjr 
*  a  diStina  work  of  God  ",  and  besides  he  had  no 
opinion  of  "  ledhires  "  as  a  means  of  grace.  "  I 
should  really  have  some  faith",  he  wrote  "in 

32 


HENRY     DRUMMOND:     A     MYSTERY 

addresses  of  a  simple  kind — not  written  ledures, 
but  clear  Statements  of  what  Christianity  really  is, 
what  personal  religion  really  is,  and  evangelical 
matter  generally.  To  attempt  this  would  be 
very  much  more  trying ;  but  if  the  call  came  I 
would  feel  that  I  dared  not  shrink  from  it." 

Of  course  the  call  came.  Drummond  never 
did  anything  but  on  his  own  conditions,  and  these 
were  invariably  accepted.  An  intimation  appeared 
in  the  Society  column  of  the  Morning  Poff  that  the 
first  of  a  series  of  three  discourses  would  be 
delivered  by  Professor  Henry  Drummond  at 
Grosvenor  House  on  the  laSt  Sunday  in  April. 
No  subjeft  was  announced.  On  the  appointed 
day  a  decorous  mob  of  Cabinet  ministers,  peers. 
Society  women  and  young  men  about  town  filled 
the  ball-room.  (From  dreams  of  such  a  pool  the 
angler  usually  wakes  before  he  has  caSt  a  line.) 
Their  experience  there  was  novel,  even  discon- 
certing, but  not  unpleasantly  so.  Certainly  the 
person  of  the  prophet  they  had  come  out  for  to 
see  was  interesting.  Drummond  was  only  thirty- 
four,  and  but  for  the  grey  with  which  an  arduous 
year  in  tropical  Africa  had  Streaked  the  shining 
red  of  his  hair,  might  have  been  taken  for  even 
less.  He  wore  neatly  trimmed  mutton  chop 
whiskers  and  a  finicky  little  upturned  moustache. 
(Later  he  abandoned  this  fashion  and  wore  his 
moustache  longer  and  drooping,  but  he  always 
retained  the  whiskers.)  His  bright  hazel  eyes 
were  remarkable  both  for  their  colour,  which  was 

33  D 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

as  it  were  sun  filled,  and  for  their  gaze  which, 
though  not  what  is  called  piercing,  was  keen  and 
brilliantly  Steady.  He  was  above  the  middle 
height,  rather  slender  but  broad  shouldered  and 
well  proportioned,  with  a  grace  of  movement 
which  was,  however,  of  the  precise  and  even 
formal  kind.  His  clothes  were  faultless.  He 
might  indeed  have  passed  for  a  Guardsman, 
especially  as,  in  addition  to  his  other  gifts,  there 
was  nothing  in  his  appearance  to  suggest  intel- 
ledual  pretensions.  In  short  he  was  an  ex- 
tremely handsome,  attractive  and  well  turned-out 
young  man.  Speaking  afterwards  of  his  Society 
debut  Drummond  said  with  a  grin  that  he  had 
never  felt  so  horrid  in  his  life,  but  it  does  not 
appear  that  any  sign  of  diffidence  or  self-con- 
sciousness escaped  him.  He  began  his  address, 
and  presently  it  dawned  upon  his  audience  that 
they  were  likening  to  the  la§t  thing  they  had 
expeded  to  hear — a  discourse  on  conversion, 
expressed  with  great  ingenuity  and  charm  in 
terms  of  modern  thought,  but  genuine  evangel- 
ical §tuS  none  the  less.  When  at  the  end  of  an 
hour  the  preacher  said,  "Let  us  pray",  they 
were  dazed  but  they  knelt.  Next  Sunday  in 
addition  to  the  ball-room  an  ante-room  had  to  be 
opened  to  cope  with  the  crowd  that  came. 

Drummond's  London  triumph  was  complete, 
but  whether  it  was  a  legitimate  triumph  is  an  open 
que^ion.  As  a  social  tour  de  force  it  was  perfeft, 
but  there  is  not  much  more  to  be  said  for  it.     At 

34 


HENRY     DRUMMOND:     A     MYSTERY 

Grosvenor  House  he  was  on  his  mettle.  His 
audience  consifted  of  men  and  women  whose 
outlook  differed  toto  coelo  from  his  own  and  who, 
besides  being  quicker  witted  and  better  educated, 
knew  far  more  about  the  hard  realities  of  human 
nature  than  any  audience  he  had  ever  before  been 
called  upon  to  handle.  That  he  should  have 
succeeded  in  not  only  interesting  them  but 
winning  their  respedt  was  an  achievement  to  be 
proud  of;  St.  Paul  in  similar  circumstances  did 
not  do  nearly  so  well.  As  a  display  of  virtuosity 
it  had  a  personal  value  for  Drummond  by  afford- 
ing him  a  reclame  of  a  kind  that  at  that  jundure 
was  very  useful  to  him,  but  by  that  same  token 
its  religious  value  was  nil.  And  even  when 
judged  from  the  personal  Standpoint  its  effeft  was 
equivocal.  Certainly  it  was  the  means  of  avert- 
ing a  great  deal  of  unpleasantness  with  which  he 
was  threatened  by  some  of  his  countrymen  and 
fellow-churchmen.  Natural  Law,  with  its  auda- 
cious attempt  to  conStrud  a  Christian  apologetic 
out  of  the  teachings  of  natural  science,  had  scandal- 
ised the  orthodox,  and  its  author  was  freely  de- 
nounced as  a  Judas,  a  more  poisonous  reptile 
even  than  Robertson  Smith.  There  was  ample 
material  for  a  firSt-class  heresy  hunt.  True,  the 
"  lynching  **,  as  Drummond  had  called  it,  of 
Robertson  Smith  had  been  a  sickening  affair,  and 
many  of  those  who  had  taken  part  in  it  had  no 
Stomach  for  another  job  of  the  sort,  but  that 
would  not  have  deterred  the  zealots.     Grosvenor 

35 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

House,  however,  made  it  impossible  for  them  to 
take  efFeftive  aftion,  because  againSt  Drummond 
they  could  not  count  on  the  support  of  the 
wealthy  elders  whose  attitude  was  always  in  the 
laft  resort  the  deciding  fador  in  Free  Church 
politics.  These,  like  many  other  worthy  men, 
were  snobs.  It  was  easy  to  mobilise  them 
against  Robertson  Smith,  who  was  only  a  man 
of  genius  and  a  great  scholar  and  teacher,  but  it 
was  impossible  to  make  them  doubt  the  ortho- 
doxy of  one  who  had  the  approval  of  the  "  be§t 
people  ".  And  so  to  the  end  of  his  life  Drummond 
never  had  to  put  up  with  anything  worse  than  a 
few  abusive  newspaper  articles  and  a  fair  propor- 
tion of  scurrilous  letters  (moftly  anonymous)  in 
his  morning  mail.^ 

But  while  the  Grosvenor  House  adventure 
may  have  been  advantageous  to  Drummond  in 
one  quarter  it  was  undoubtedly  detrimental  to 
him  in  another,  as  he  was  presently  to  find  to  his 
chagrin.  Although  he  owed  much  to  the  praise 
with  which  Anglican  writers  had  received  Natural 
Law  in  the  Spiritual  World,  clerical  opinion  in 
England  was  as  a  whole  unsympathetic,  and  it 
was  provoked  to  positive  antipathy  by  his  appear- 
ance as  a  fashionable  evangelist.     The  Church 

I  An  amusing  variant  of  this  form  of  attack  came  to  the  author's 
notice  in  Glasgow  one  Sunday  morning  shortly  after  the  appearance 
of  The  Ascent  of  Man.  PoSled  on  the  door  of  the  Free  Church  CoUege 
was  a  tiny  slip  of  paper  bearing  the  couplet : 

"  O  monkey  Drummond,  mighty  Christian  man. 
What  new  dirt  gospel  next  ?     Come  tell  me  if  you  can." 

36 


HENRY     DRUMMOND:     A     MYSTERY 

newspapers  were  sour  about  him  and  his  doftrine. 
They  even  hinted  that  he  was  a  bit  of  a  mounte- 
bank— a  cruel  accusation  that  he  was  bound  to 
feel.  It  was  easy  enough  to  see  that  Drummond 
was  not  really  a  knowledgeable  man,  and  that  his 
thinking  was  vague  and  incoherent.  It  was  also 
easy  to  see  that  he  loved  publicity  and  that  he  was 
well  aware  that,  within  certain  limits,  he  was  a 
complete  master  of  the  arts  of  the  platform.  The 
inference  drawn  was  the  natural  uncharitable  one 
that  he  was  exploiting  his  gifts  from  motives  of 
gain  or  vanity.  Now  nothing  is  plainer  than 
that  by  his  temperament,  his  natural  gifts,  his 
tastes,  his  opportunities,  even  his  religious  dogma, 
Drummond  had  every  temptation  to  be  a  mounte- 
bank. He  was  saved  only  by  the  prevenient 
grace  of  God  in  making  him  a  gentleman  and 
a  Christian ;  but  as  his  Anglican  critics  could 
not  be  exped:ed  to  know  that,  we  need  not  blame 
them  too  much  for  judging  him  in  accordance 
with  natural  injustice.  They  saw  only  that  the 
Grosvenor  House  discourses,  an  ominous  be- 
ginning, were  being  followed  up  by  a  campaign 
of  drawing-room  meetings  in  support  of  a 
fantastic  scheme  "  for  setting  all  the  unemployed 
in  the  We§t  End  to  work  ",  and  that  dear  Pro- 
fessor Drummond  showed  all  the  symptoms  of 
being  a  craze  of  frivolity  (largely  feminine)  in  its 
mo§t  detectable  mood — the  mood  of  pretending 
to  be  serious. 

Drummond  did  not  realise  into  what  a  false 

37 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

position  he  had  drifted  until  the  following 
Odober  when  he  went  to  Oxford  to  organise  a 
series  of  meetings  in  support  of  the  religious 
movement  among  Students.  As  he  went  as  a 
gue§t  of  the  Warden  of  All  Souls,  and  had  many- 
flattering  assurances  of  help,  he  imagined  in  his 
Scottish  innocence  of  Oxford  ways  that  his  visit 
would  be  a  success,  perhaps  a  crowning  triumph. 
And  indeed  he  was  able  to  write  home  about  the 
"  seething  mass  of  undergraduates  "  which  was 
his  firft  meeting  at  Trinity.  But  Oxford  had 
made  up  its  mind  about  him,  and  had  prepared 
his  humiliation.  Certain  heads  of  colleges  vied 
with  one  another  in  giving  individual  displays  of 
the  fine  art  of  being  perfeftly  beastly  in  the 
gentlemanly  way,  notably  Jowett  and  Liddell. 
In  the  malicious  eyes  of  the  former  Drummond 
was  too  good  a  chance  to  be  missed.  He  wrote 
a  demure  little  note  suggesting,  "  if  I  may  make 
the  proposal ",  that  the  evangeUSt  should  dine 
with  him  tete  a  tete.  And,  of  course,  the  lad 
accepted  joyfully. 

It  would  be  of  passing  interest  to  have  the 
full  record  of  that  dinner.  Drummond's  own 
chronicle  of  it  is  notably  abStraft  and  brief.  "  I 
thought  my  dinner  with  the  Vice-Chancellor  very 
sad,"  he  writes.  "  We  were  entirely  alone  and 
had  a  good  talk,  also  occasional  silences.  He 
asked  me  if  in  Scotland  we  were  now  giving  up 
belief  in  Miracles — he  meant  as  a  sign  of  pro- 
gress."   One  may  infer  that  one,  and  that  the 

38 


HENRY     DRUMMOND:     A     MYSTERY 

va^eSt,  of  the  occasional  silences  followed  that 
queftion — Jowett  chuckling  inwardly  at  having 
suppressed  a  raw  upstart,  and  Drummond,  all  in 
amaze  at  the  acute  little  old  gentleman's  gift  of 
irrelevance,  musing,  "  And  this  is  Oxford !  " 
But  it  was  more  in  anger  than  in  sorrow  that  he 
wrote  of  Liddell,  who  had  been  cajoled  into 
allowing  a  meeting  to  be  held  in  Christ  Church 
hall.  "  He  gave  me  pretty  clearly  to  understand 
that  it  was  solely  on  Aberdeen's  account.  He 
thawed  a  little  after  twenty  minutes  over  tea,  but 
I  thought  him  very  appalling."  This  sort  of 
thing  was  daunting,  but  Drummond's  heart, 
though  troubled,  was  not  broken  until  he  realised 
the  fury  of  the  rival  sefts — Church  againSt  Dis- 
sent and  the  Still  more  bitter  conflift  of  High 
Church  and  Low  Church.  His  letters  show  how 
sick  he  was  of  the  whole  boiling  of  them,  but 
especially  of  the  EvangeHcals,  whose  assumption 
of  a  kind  of  private  property  in  him  entitling  them 
to  order  him  about  was  too  much  for  his  High- 
land blood.  A  tall  fellow  with  red  hair  and 
bright  eyes  is  not  to  be  trifled  with,  however 
smooth  his  manners  may  appear.  He  had  with 
some  pain  emancipated  himself  from  the  religion 
of  phrases  which  is  called  cant,  and  it  was  with 
unspeakable  disguSt  that  he  found  that  at  Oxford 
he  was  expefted  to  observe  it.  He  seems  to  have 
spoken  his  mind  with  some  freedom.  "  I  had 
no  idea  ",  he  says,  "  that  it  would  be  part  of  my 
work  here  to  run  a  tilt  againSt  the  evangelism 

59 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

current  in  the  place,  but  nothing  is  more  needed. 
...  I  have  told  the  Low  Church  men  to  repress 
themselves  entirely,  but  to  work  behind  the  scenes 
to  any  extent.  To  the  latter  our  ways  of  work, 
our  leading  ideas,  the  absence  of  cant  and  of 
evangelical  formulas  are  a  complete  revelation, 
and  I  really  think  they  will  adopt  them."  We 
may  take  it  that  he  thought  nothing  of  the  kind, 
but  like  a  decent  fellow  he  had  to  say  so. 

Drummond's  discomfiture  at  Oxford  did  not 
discourage  him  from  pursuing  the  "Students' 
movement ",  which  to  the  end  of  his  life  remained 
his  principal  concern,  but  it  made  him  refleft  to 
some  purpose.  He  quietly  withdrew  from  draw- 
ing-room meetings.  Feminine  adulation,  though 
quite  agreeable,  did  not  seriously  interest  him 
and  he  now  knew  its  limitations  and  dangers, 
not  to  himself  as  a  man  (women  were  never 
dangerous  to  Drummond)  but  to  his  ministry. 
When  three  years  later  he  consented  to  give  a 
second  Grosvenor  House  series,  the  announce- 
ment mentioned  that  owing  to  the  limited 
accommodation  available  men  only  would  be 
admitted  !  It  was  an  adroit  move  and  its  results 
confounded  his  enemies.  Had  Drummond  been 
the  kind  of  man  that  Jowett  and  Liddell  in  their 
worldly  wisdom  took  him  for,  his  reappearance 
at  Grosvenor  House  would  certainly  have  been 
a  fiasco  ;  yet  working  under  Stringent  limitations 
and  without  any  of  the  lure  of  novelty  that  had 
helped  him  before,  he  achieved  a  success  that  was 

40 


HENRY     DRUMMOND:     A     MYSTERY 

quite  as  spectacular  and  much  more  solid  than 
that  of  1885.  On  each  of  the  three  Sundays, 
according  to  a  contemporary  newspaper  report, 
"  the  great  square  room  was  densely  crowded 
by  an  interested  and  representative  gathering — 
politicians,  clergymen,  authors,  artifts,  critics, 
soldiers  and  barrifters,  with  a  large  sprinkling 
of  smart  young  men,  whose  appearance  would 
scarcely  have  suggested  a  vivid  interest  in  serious 
concerns".  The  addresses — "Evolution  and 
Christianity  ",  "  Natural  Seleftion  and  Christian- 
ity "  and  "  The  Programme  of  Christianity  " — 
had  all  Drummond's  faults  in  full  measure,  but 
their  matter  and  the  manner  in  which  they  were 
received  prove  that  both  he  and  his  audience 
were  quite  convinced  that  he  had  something  to 
say,  even  if  neither  he  nor  his  audience  seemed 
to  know  in  precise  terms  what  that  something 
was.  Drummond's  detrad:ors  were  in  a  dilemma. 
If  he  had  something  to  say,  some  new  and  pro- 
found religious  message  for  his  generation,  cadit 
quaeHio  :  he  was  entitled  to  his  audience.  If  not, 
then  the  fad:  that  none  the  less  he  could  exaft  the 
respeft,  even  admiration,  of  men  like  Arthur 
Balfour,  George  Curzon,  Alfred  Lyttelton, 
G.  W.  E.  Russell  and  J.  E.  C.  WeUdon,  excluded 
the  idea  of  a  superior  mountebank,  and  argued 
a  great  and  triumphant  personality. 

By  this  time,  however,  testimony  to  the  quality 
of  Drummond's  personal  power  was  really  super- 
fluous, for  during  1885  and  1886,  to  all  seeming, 

41 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

the  Grand  Old  Man  himself  was  chained  to  his 
chariot — a  supreme  speftacle  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  'eighties.  "  To  all  seeming  '*  one 
mu§t  say,  because  it  is  difficult  to  speak  absolutely 
of  Mr.  Gladstone's  behaviour  at  any  time,  and 
quite  impossible  in  the  case  of  the  years  1885  and 
1886.  The  two  men  had  met  but  their  personal 
contafts  had  been  of  the  slightest,  and  as  Gladstone 
through  all  his  long  life  had  never  shown  himself 
subjed  to  personal  enthusiasms  it  is  unlikely  that 
at  the  age  of  seventy-six,  and  thoroughly  rme^  he 
should  develop  one  for  a  young  and  inexperienced 
man  of  thirty-four  with  whom  he  had  nothing  in 
common  save  a  sincere  belief  in  the  Christian 
religion,  a  profession  of  Liberal  principles  and  a 
Strong  regard  for  Lord  Aberdeen.  The  laSt  was 
the  only  common  groimd  that  presented  any  sub- 
Stance,  for  as  to  the  second  Drummond  was  a 
Liberal  for  no  better  reason  than  that  in  his  time 
the  Labour  party  had  not  been  invented,  and  as 
to  Christianity  one  really  hesitates  to  bracket  the 
author  of  Natural  'Law  and  the  author  of  The 
Impregnable  Koc^  of  Holy  Scripture  as  professors  of 
the  same  religion.  The  aged  Statesman,  during 
his  brief  recess  from  office  in  1885,  had  been 
making  himself  ridiculous  by  his  controversy 
with  Huxley  about  the  Book  of  Genesis,  and 
Drummond  had  felt  it  his  duty  to  say  so  in  the 
pages  of  the  Nineteenth  Century.  But  when,  in 
February  1886,  the  odious  article  appeared,  Mr. 
Gladstone  had  for  the  moment  loSt  interest  in 

42 


HENRY     DRUMMOND:     A     MYSTERY 

Moses.  He  was  forming  his  fir§t  Home  Rule 
administration  and  was  in  no  mood  to  quarrel 
with  a  brilliant  young  man  who  not  only  had 
gained  the  ear  of  the  general  public  but  was 
known  to  have  great  influence  with  an  important 
and  wealthy  seftion  of  Scottish  Liberals  whose 
attitude  at  this  jun6hire  was  a  source  of  consider- 
able anxiety  to  the  Liberal  party.  If  Drummond 
could  make  these  people  swallow  Evolution  and 
the  Higher  Criticism  he  could  make  them  swallow 
anything — even  Home  Rule.  Li  the  circum- 
stances it  was  expedient  to  leave  his  heterodoxy 
to  the  safe  determination  of  Judgment  Day  and 
concentrate  on  the  immediate  business  of  securing 
his  support  for  the  Government's  Irish  policy. 
This  proved  comparatively  easy,  though  it  did 
not  work  out  quite  as  Mr.  Gladstone  had  pro- 
posed. Drummond's  adoring  friend,  Lord  Aber- 
deen, had  gone  to  Dublin  as  the  Home  Rule 
viceroy,  and  almost  his  firSt  ad  was  to  beg  him 
to  join  the  Viceregal  Staff.  If  Drummond  had 
had  anything  of  the  adventurer  in  him,  now 
was  his  chance.  Having  regard  to  the  personal 
relations  that  subsisted  between  him  and  Lord 
Aberdeen  the  offer  was  tantamount  to  an  invita- 
tion to  become  the  power  behind  the  Viceregal 
throne,  and,  had  he  chosen,  not  even  the  presence 
of  Morley  as  Chief  Secretary  would  have  pre- 
vented him  from  becoming  the  virtual  ruler  of 
Ireland.  But  he  did  not  choose.  He  sent  Lord 
Aberdeen  a  good-natured  but  perfedly  firm  refusal 

45 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

with  a  disclaimer  of  ambition  which  is  almost 
touching  in  its  sincerity  and  artlessness.  "  For 
Mrs.  Gnmdy,  I  do  not  care,  I  hope ;  but  for 
others,  for  the  Students  and  for  those  to  whom 
one  may  yet  speak  of  a  Spiritual  World,  one 
would  like  to  avoid  even  the  appearance  of 
ambition.  Is  it  not  so  ?  "  It  may  have  been 
an  element  in  his  reludance  that  his  mind  about 
Ireland  was  not  yet  made  up,  but  his  doubts 
could  not  have  been  serious,  for  when  two 
months  later  he  paid  a  flying  visit  to  Dublin  he 
went  not  only  as  the  Viceroy's  gue§t  and  intimate 
but  as  one  of  the  Prime  Miniver's  secret  agents. 
When  he  returned,  with  John  Morley  bearing 
him  company  and  in  close  converse  with  him 
across  the  channel,  his  enthusiasm  for  Home 
Rule  and  his  confidential  report  on  the  State  of 
Irish  feeling  left  nothing  to  be  desired.  The 
natural  consequence  was  that  the  Liberal  assault 
on  Drummond's  integrity  was  renewed  with  a 
violence  that  few  men  could  have  resisted.  The 
Whips'  Office  thruSt  seats  upon  him.  MoSt  of 
them  were  reasonable  certainties  which  he  had 
no  hesitation  in  declining,  but  there  was  one 
where  the  odds  againSt  were  heavy  that  gave  him 
serious  trouble.  This  was  the  Partick  Division 
of  Lanarkshire  \  of  which  the  sitting  Liberal 
member,  relying  on  an  estimate  of  the  con- 
stituency that  was  admittedly  sound,  had  gone 
Unionist.     Partick  included  the  whole   of  the 

*  Now,  since  1918,  a  division  of  Glasgow. 

44 


HENRY     DRUMMOND:     A     MYSTERY 

new  We§l  End  of  Glasgow  as  well  as  a  working- 
class  diStrift  that  was  notoriously  Orange,  and 
a  GladStonian  victory  there  would  do  much  to 
Steady  the  tottering  fabric  of  We§t  of  Scotland 
Liberalism.  It  was  believed  that  Drummond, 
and  Drummond  alone,  could  achieve  it.  Un- 
heard-of efforts  were  made  to  induce  him  to 
Stand.  The  local  Liberals  were  frantic  in  their 
entreaties.  They  invaded  his  house  and  had 
almost  to  be  driven  by  force  from  his  doorstep. 
The  Whips  were  clamorous  in  their  solicitations. 
Gladstone  himself  wrote  a  pressing  letter.  But 
Drummond  would  not  be  moved.  "  What  little 
I  can  do  as  regards  the  present  crisis,"  he  wrote 
to  Gladstone,  "  I  think  I  can  do  to  equal  purpose 
apart  from  the  House  of  Commons,  and,  in  the 
long  run,  for  the  good  ends,  of  which  this  is  but 
a  part,  I  believe  that  by  working  in  the  fixed 
walk  of  life  which  seems  to  be  assigned  to  me, 
and  which  refuses,  in  spite  of  private  Struggles 
and  the  persuasion  of  the  wisest  friends,  to  release 
me  for  this  special  service,  I  can  do  more  for 
every  cause  of  truth  and  righteousness."  After 
the  General  Ele6tion — during  which  he  pundhially 
observed  his  promise  to  work  for  "  the  cause  " 
and  incurred  plenty  of  odium  thereby — Drum- 
mond put  politics  out  of  his  life.  In  the  autumn 
he  was  hard  at  work  addressing  Students*  meet- 
ings at  Bonn,  where  he  hoped  to  make  a  beginning 
of  the  extension  of  the  "  Students'  movement " 
to  the  German  universities.     It  does  not  appear 

45 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

that  he  made  any  deep  impression,  but  he  was 
happier  there  than  at  Oxford :  he  could  speak 
the  people's  language. 

During  the  eight  years  of  aftive  life  that 
remained  to  him  Drummond  went  serenely  along 
the  solitary  path  that  he  had  chosen,  neither 
avoiding  nor  courting  publicity,  as  gracious  and 
winning  and  light-hearted  as  ever,  but  perfeftly 
detached.  To  all  the  world  he  presented  the 
vision  of  the  happy  man — the  man  who  can  do 
what  pleases  him  in  the  way  that  pleases  him  and 
enjoys  every  moment  of  it.  He  gave  the  second 
series  of  Grosvenor  House  addresses  of  which 
mention  has  been  made.  He  laboured  unceas- 
ingly at  his  beloved  students'  movement — a 
quixotic  task  that  involved  a  voyage  round  the 
world.  While  in  Australia  he  was  successfully 
tempted  to  make  a  quasi-political  excursion  to 
the  New  Hebrides.  In  1894  he  published  The 
Ascent)  of  Man  (being  the  Lowell  Le6hires  delivered 
by  him  at  Boston  in  the  previous  year)  and  refused 
the  principalship  of  McGill  University,  Montreal. 
His  career  was  over.  In  the  same  year  the  fir§t 
symptoms  appeared  of  a  malignant  disease  of 
the  bones.  He  died  at  Tunbridge  Wells  on 
March  11,  1897,  after  more  than  two  years  of 
intense  suffering,  which  he  bore  not  only  without 
complaint  but  with  the  same  gaiety  and  playful- 
ness that  had  endeared  him  to  his  fellows  in  the 
days  when  to  have  imagined  Henry  Drummond 
as  a  helpless  pain -racked  cripple  would  have 

46 


HENRY     DRUMMOND:     A     MYSTERY 

seemed  like  a  denial  of  the  decencies  that  even  a 
godless  universe  mu^  recognise. 

It  was  observed  at  the  beginning  of  this  Study 
that  in  the  history  of  Henry  Drummond  there 
are  mysteries  at  every  turn.  Was  he  a  man  of 
genius  manque  or  did  he  fulfil  his  deStiny  ?  Was 
there  substance  in  the  reputation  he  enjoyed  in 
his  lifetime  or  was  he  merely  a  delightful  illusion  ? 
Was  his  role  of  religious  teacher  the  only  one 
possible  or,  in  refusing  to  enter  politics,  did  he 
make  the  Great  Refusal  and  juStly  incur  the 
oblivion  that  descended  upon  him  as  soon  as 
his  body  was  laid  in  the  grave  ?  Or  was  that 
oblivion  but  the  triumph  of  some  malignant 
deity  that  had  determined  that  his  Story  should 
remain  half-told  ?  Those  who  care  to  speculate 
upon  these  questions  may  find  it  moSt  profitable 
to  approach  them  by  Starting  with  the  laSt.  Of 
the  oblivion  there  is  no  doubt.  To-day  the 
mention  of  his  name  awakens  only  a  faint  and 
broken  echo  in  the  memories  of  men  to  whose 
ears  forty  years  ago  it  came  like  the  call  of  a 
celestial  clarion.  To  younger  men  it  conveys 
nothing  at  all.  Even  among  Drummond's  sur- 
viving intimates  it  is  to  be  feared  that  the  man 
has  been  forgotten  and  his  place  taken  by  a 
sentimental  legend,  beautiful  to  those  that  like 
such  things,  but  untrue.  Its  untruth  is  due  to 
the  singular  faft  that  Drummond,  though  he 
could  command  unlimited  adoration,  never  made 
a  disciple,  the  result  being  that  in  their  passionate 

47 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

desire  to  exalt  his  personality  his  friends  have 
conspired  with  his  enemies  to  decry  the  worth 
of  his  written  words.  "  Drummond  was  far 
greater  than  his  books  ",  exclaims  Sir  George 
Adam  Smith,  his  friend  and  pious  biographer, 
and,  in  a  sense  that  one  can  easily  appreciate,  it 
may  be  true;  but  in  the  only  sense  that  really 
matters,  the  sense  of  succeeding  generations,  it 
is  profoundly  false.  Nothing  is  easier  than  to 
convid  Drummond's  two  considerable  books. 
Natural  haw  in  the  Spiritual  World  and  The  Ascent) 
of  Man^  of  shallowness  and  inconsistency,  to  ex- 
plode their  logic,  sniff  at  their  science,  and  deride 
their  artiess  notion  that  the  life  of  the  universe 
is  a  rough  but  interesting  and,  on  the  whole, 
honourable  game.  If  one  applies  metaphysical 
canons  it  is  quite  impossible  to  make  head  or 
tail  of  Drummond's  do£i:rine,  to  reconcile  Natural 
Law  either  with  itself  or  The  Ascent)  of  Man. 
Monism  and  pluralism,  rationalism,  mysticism  and 
empiricism  joStle  one  another  in  his  pages  in 
the  most  bewildering  fashion.  Sometimes  he  is 
Hegel,  sometimes  Huxley,  sometimes  Herbert 
Spencer;  in  The  Ascent  of  Man  he  curiously 
anticipates  William  James,  both  in  matter  and 
manner.  But  what  his  friends  did  not  appreciate 
was  that  without  these  vaguenesses  and  inco- 
herences that  troubled  them  he  could  never  have 
made  the  appeal  to  his  time  that  he  did.  The 
situation,  of  course,  looks  clear  enough  now. 
For   a   generation   or   more   science   had   been 

48 


HENRY     DRUMMOND:     A     MYSTERY 

sapping  the  foundations  of  conventional  evangel- 
ical Christianity.  There  were  many  men  who 
were  aware  of  what  was  going  on,  but  they  had 
been  content,  like  Jowett,  to  observe  it  from  the 
fancied  security  of  a  college  window  with  a 
malicious  anticipation  of  what  fun  it  would  be 
when  the  crash  came.  In  the  'eighties  the  crash 
did  come,  and  no  doubt  it  provoked  Olympian 
laughter  to  see  the  poor  souls,  awakened  from  a 
troubled  sleep,  scurrying  about  and  cutting  the 
most  diverting  capers.  But  the  poor  souls  who 
groped  in  darkness  and  confusion  naturally  had 
no  sense  of  humour,  and  they  were  glad  when 
they  heard  a  voice  from  the  ruins  proclaim  with 
youthful  confidence,  *'  In  my  Father's  house  are 
many  mansions  :  if  it  were  not  so  I  would  have 
told  you  ".  Drummond  himself  had  experienced 
the  collapse  of  the  old  fabric,  but  to  his  joyous 
boyish  spirit  that  was  untroubled  by  doubts  either 
of  logic  or  of  life  it  was  no  calamity  but  a  glorious 
adventure.  He  would  preach  the  unity  of  the 
Gospel  of  Christ  with  scientific  truth,  and  he  was 
so  enamoured  of  both  that  it  took  him  years  to 
discover  that,  hidden  in  the  bosom  of  his  dodrine, 
there  was  a  dualism  that  all  his  fine  words  and 
happy  analogies  had  not  resolved.  As  The  Ascent) 
of  Man  shows,  he  did  not  despair  of  resolving  it, 
but  there  are  many  indications,  both  in  that  book 
and  in  his  various  published  addresses,  that,  had 
he  lived,  he  would  have  ended,  like  men  who 
were  greybeards  when  he  was  born,  by  accepting 

49  E 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

frankly  the  position  that  spiritual  truth  and 
scientific  truth  He  in  different  universes  and  that 
the  whole  duty  of  the  honest  man  is  to  render 
unto  Cassar  the  things  that  are  Gesar's  and  unto 
God  the  things  that  are  God's.  This  is  what  the 
average  man  of  the  'eighties,  who  read  a  little 
and  thought  occasionally,  wished  in  his  heart 
to  believe.  He  wanted  to  hear  somebody  who 
would  save  his  soul  without  insulting  his  in- 
telligence, and  in  the  author  of  Natural  Law  he 
got  what  he  wanted.  Drummond,  for  all  his 
interest  in  "  spiritual  diagnosis  '\  had  little  insight 
into  the  souls  of  individual  men,  but  he  was 
extraordinarily  sensitive  to  the  way  that  men  in 
general  were  thinking,  and  by  his  gift  of  ex- 
pressing their  perplexities,  which  he  himself  felt, 
he  helped  to  solve  them.  If  to-day  plain  men 
can  contemplate  a  Christianity  purged  of  miracle 
and  superstition,  it  is  to  Henry  Drummond  more 
than  any  other  man  that  the  credit  is  due. 

The  final  myStery  of  Drummond  is  his  person- 
ality. He  was  apparently  the  moSt  charming 
and  most  exasperating  of  men.  He  was  hand- 
some, infinitely  amusing,  imperturbable  (except 
perhaps  at  Oxford),  fond  of  simple  but  expensive 
pleasures  like  travelling  and  deer-Stalking,  and 
— a  trait  that  many  people  could  not  abide — 
always  dressed  to  obvious  perfediion.  Apart 
from  clothes  his  aesthetic  perceptions  were  poor. 
He  coUefted  bad  pidures  and  bad  curios.  He 
read  comparatively  little  and  showed  no  taste  in 

50 


HENRY     DRUMMOND:     A     MYSTERY 

what  he  did  read — he  mentions  Longfellow  and 
Bret  Harte  among  his  particular  admirations. 
As  to  music,  he  could  tolerate,  though  he  may  not 
have  liked,  Sankey's  hymns.  He  never  married, 
and  never  excited  even  the  whisper  of  a  love- 
affair,  which  was  the  only  resped:  in  which  he 
failed  to  earn  the  nickname  of  "  The  Prince  " 
beftowed  upon  him  by  the  admiring  young  men 
who  regarded  his  Study  as  a  presence  chamber. 
It  is  difficult  to  think  of  such  a  man  as  an  artist, 
but  an  artist  he  was  in  two  respefts — his  maStery 
of  the  expository  Style  in  writing  and  his  con- 
summate art  in  addressing  what  is  called  a  cul- 
tured audience  upon  a  religious  subjedl.  In  the 
former  he  has  had  few  equals  and  no  superior. 
In  the  latter  he  Stands  alone.  No  one  has  even 
attempted  to  imitate  him. 

These  were  notable  but  far  from  being 
supreme  gifts.  What  was  behind  it  all,  what  was 
the  balance  that  eludes  us  after  we  have  summed 
up  the  whole  account  of  good  looks,  good 
clothes,  good  temper  and  goodness  generally, 
and  which  made  men  who  knew  him  say, 
"  Drummond  was  unique  "  ?  Was  it  some  rare 
and  subtle  ingredient  of  the  soul,  or  was  the 
secret  that  he  guarded  so  cunningly,  withal  so 
involuntarily,  the  lack  of  something  that  ordi- 
narily goes  to  the  making  of  a  man  ?  Was  he 
the  Galahad  or  Lohengrin  that  his  friends  saw, 
or  was  he  merely  Peter  Pan  in  a  frock-coat  and 
whiskers,  whose  influence  over  men  consisted  in 

51 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

no  more  than  his  capacity  to  appeal  to  the  boy 
that  sleeps  in  every  man's  heart  ?  A  good  case 
might  be  made  out  for  the  latter  interpretation. 
He  was  as  light-hearted  and  forward  looking  as 
a  boy,  because,  like  a  boy  he  never  saw  very  far 
forward.  He  had  a  boy*s  implicit  belief  that  in 
order  to  be  adventurous  it  is  not  necessary  to  be 
unconventional.  He  had  a  boy's  generosity,  a 
boy's  affeftions,  a  boy's  sensitiveness  and  a  boy's 
callousness.  There  is  a  famous  article  on  errand- 
boys  that  he  wrote  for  Good  Words  in  support  of 
the  Boys'  Brigade,  a  passage  from  which  may  be 
quoted  as  illustrating  both  his  understanding  of 
the  boy  mind  and  the  easy  felicity  of  his  Style. 

The  boy  is  accounted  for  by  the  Evolution  Theory. 
His  father  was  the  Primitive  Man.  It  is  only  his  being  in 
a  town  and  his  mispronunciation  that  make  you  think  he 
is  not  a  savage.  What  he  represents  is  Capacity ;  he  is 
clay,  dough,  putty.  This  boy  cannot  as  yet  walk  Straight, 
or  dress  better,  or  brush  his  hair.  He  is  not  good.  He 
is  not  bad.  He  has  no  soul.  He  has  not  even  soap.  He 
is  simply  Boy,  pure,  unwashed,  unregenerate  Boy.  .  .  . 

The  real  boy-nature  in  them  has  never  been  consulted. 
You  may  be  a  very  remarkable  man,  but  it  is  not  their 
kind  of  remarkableness,  so  you  are  a  person  of  no  authority 
in  their  eyes.  You  may  be  a  walking  biblical  cyclopaedia, 
but  they  have  no  interest  even  in  a  ftationary  biblical 
cyclopedia.  They  believe  you  to  be  a  thoroughly  good 
fellow  in  your  way,  only  it  is  an  earth's  diameter  from 
their  way  ;  and  that  you  should  know  precisely  what  their 
way  is  they  guilelessly  give  you  opportunity  of  learning 
every  single  second  you  spend  among  them. 

These  words  were  written  of  Street  boys,  but 
what  master  in  a  public  school  would  demur  to 

5i 


HENRY     DRUMMOND:     A     MYSTERY 

their  universal  truth  ?  Drummond  knew  the 
boy  as  only  one  could  who  had  the  boy  within 
him  very  much  alive  and  kicking. 

Yet  the  boy-hypothesis  of  Drummond  breaks 
down  at  the  moSt  important  point.  It  does  not 
account  for  that  very  un-boyish  charafteriftic,  the 
fteely  reserve  in  which  he  sheathed  his  spirit  and 
which  no  persuasion  of  interest,  ambition  or  love 
would  prevail  with  him  to  put  off  and  show  what 
manner  of  man  he  really  was.  Therefore  he 
would  take  service  under  no  man's  banner,  but 
lived  as  a  knight-errant  and  died  in  his  armour  of 
proof. 


53 


"  SMITH  O'  AIBERDEEN  " 

**  A  feckless  crew,  no  worth  a  preen. 
As  bad  as  Smith  o'  Aiberdeen." 

R.  L.  Stevenson. 

"  And  whan  we  chastened  him  therefore. 
Thou  kens  how  he  bred  sic  a  splore 
As  set  the  warld  in  a  roar 
O'  laughing  at  us  ; 
Curse  thou  his  basket  and  his  store. 
Kail  and  potatoes  I  " 

Burns. 

The  greatest  British  scholar — "  the  cleverest  man 
in  Great  Britain",  according  to  Wellhausen — 
and  greatest  Scotsman  of  his  generation  died  in 
1894.  Eighteen  years  elapsed  before  his  bio- 
graphers could  complete  their  task.  The  delay, 
as  they  observe,  had  the  advantage  of  enabling 
them  to  present  their  subjed:  in  an  historical 
perspeftive  that  would  not  have  been  possible 
while  the  emotions  and  animosities  with  which 
Robertson  Smith's  name  had  been  associated  in 
his  lifetime  were  Still  adive  and  painful.  That 
is  true  in  the  sense  that  old  passions  have  long 
since  burned  out,  but  it  is  Still  impossible  for  any 
Scottish  writer  to  approach  the  subjeft  without 
a  degree  of  feeling  that  his  pen — if  a  truthful  one 
— muSt  betray.  For,  from  the  Scottish  point  of 
view,  Robertson  Smith  remains  and  will  remain 

54 


"smith    o'   aiberdeen" 

an  extremely  discomforting  memory,  calling  up 
more  humiliating  reflexions  than  are  consistent 
with  moderation  and  decency  of  language.     If 
Smith  had  simply  been  scandalously  and  wickedly 
served  by  his  fellow-churchmen,  it  would  neither 
be  so  bad  nor  so  difficult  to  explain.    His  penitent 
fellow-churchmen    would    have    the    perennial 
comfort  of  sackcloth  and  ashes,  and  all  would  be 
well.     Sins  do  not  worry  the  sinner  overmuch. 
A  grown  man,  if  he  be  in  good  health,  will  break 
every  Commandment  (except  possibly  the  Sixth) 
and  sleep  and  eat  none  the  worse.     What  poisons 
his  soul  at  bed  and  board,  and  even  drives  him 
to   suicide,   is   humiliation  —  the   memory  ever 
nagging  at  him  of  some  imbecile  a£t  which  no 
repentance  can  wipe  out,  no  impulse  excuse.     So 
with  Robertson  Smith  and  the  Free  Church  of 
Scotland.     He  was  not  burned  at  the  ^ake  :   he 
was  not  ca§t  out  of  the  synagogues  :    he  was 
merely  obUged  to  leave  a  chair  in  which  his  gifts 
were   waited   and   to   exchange   Aberdeen   for 
Cambridge.     Few    heretics    have    fared    better. 
But  the  Free  Church  got  no  comfort  from  a 
moderation  that  put  it  in  a  false  and  ridiculous 
position  in  the  eyes  of  the  whole  world.     It 
made  a  half-hearted  sacrifice  of  Smith  to  pacify  a 
vindiftive  minority.     It  maintained  no  principle. 
It  proclaimed  nothing  but  its  own  pusillanimity, 
laid    down   nothing   but   its    own   dignity.     In 
retrospect  the  course  of  aftion  that  seemed  at 
the  time  so  prudent  and  Statesmanlike  appeared 

55 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

in  its  true  charafter  of  a  piece  of  unredeemed 
silliness  for  which  repentance  was  vain  and  atone- 
ment impossible.  No  wonder,  then,  that  Scots- 
men still  feel  a  certain  nausea  of  spirit  when  the 
Robertson  Smith  case  is  recalled.  Even  the 
EStabUshed  Church,  which  was  not  direftly 
concerned,  does  not  care  for  the  sub j  eft,  for  there 
is  the  awkward  fad  that  certain  fathers  and 
brethren  of  the  Establishment,  animated  by  a 
Christian  zeal  to  discredit  the  rival  institution, 
exploited  the  "  heresies  "  of  the  Free  Church 
professor  for  all  they  were  worth. 

The  Robertson  Smith  case  was  the  laSt,  the 
most  dramatic  and  the  moSt  impressive  of  the 
three  great  battles  between  traditional  and 
modernist  theology,  the  others  being  the  Essays 
and  Keviews  controversy  and  the  proceedings 
against  Bishop  Colenso.  In  the  earlier  engage- 
ments the  heretics  had  reconnoitred  the  ground 
well  before  offering  battle,  and  the  big  battalions 
of  orthodoxy,  chagrined  and  discomfited,  left 
the  field  to  the  jeering  Strains  of  Psalm  cxxiv., 
chanted  by  the  rebels  from  the  security  of  a 
Privy  Coimcil  judgment.  It  was  with  exulta- 
tion, therefore,  that  the  orthodox  throughout 
the  United  Kindgom  learned  that  the  next  battle 
was  to  be  fought  in  Scotland.  "  I  will  lift  up 
mine  eyes  to  the  hills,"  they  cried,  "whence 
Cometh  my  safety."  For  in  Scodand  there  was 
no  Privy  Council  to  shield  heretics  from  the 
wrath  of  the  righteous,  and  the  Scots,  above  all 

56 


SMITH     O      AIBERDEEN 

people,  could  be  depended  upon  to  deal  faith- 
fully with  anyone  who  laid  an  unhallowed  hand 
on  the  Ark  of  God.  In  order  to  see  exadly 
what  ground  orthodoxy  had  for  its  confidence, 
it  is  necessary  to  understand  something  of  the 
constitution  and  history  of  the  Church  to  which 
Robertson  Smith  belonged  and  its  temper  and 
situation  in  the  'seventies. 


Scottish  Presbyterianism,  unlike  English  non- 
conformity, dates  from  the  Reformation,  and  no 
less  than  the  Church  of  England,  though  on 
different  groimds,  affirms  its  continuity  with  the 
historic  Church  catholic.  But  whereas  in  England 
the  breach  with  Rome  was  firSt  and  foremoSt 
a  political  aft — ^the  consummation  of  the  policy 
of  reducing  all  jurisdiftions  into  the  possession  of 
the  Crown — ^in  Scotland  it  was  an  extension  of 
the  Continental  Reformation  to  which  the  Crown 
was  bitterly  hostile.  The  Kirk  thus  began  its 
career  in  an  attitude  of  antagonism  to  the  State, 
which  later  events  served  only  to  intensify  and 
render  permanent.  The  curious  result  followed 
that  a  Church  which  rejefted  with  peculiar  violence 
the  faith  and  obedience  of  Rome  was  obliged  in 
self-defence  to  retain  Rome's  ecclesiastical  philo- 
sophy and  to  reaffirm  it  with  ever -increasing 
vehemence.  The  doftrines  of  Hildebrand  were 
adopted  without  scruple  and,  embodied  in  such 
resounding    catchwords    as    "  non  -  intrusion  ", 

57 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

"  Spiritual  independence "  and  "  the  Crown 
Rights  of  the  Redeemer ",  were  enjoined  to  be 
believed  on  peril  of  perdition. 

On  such  a  view,  of  course,  a  Church  E^ablish- 
ment  was  possible  only  on  the  basis  of  a  concordat, 
and  a  concordat  was  at  la§t  reached  in  the  Revolu- 
tion Settlement  of  1690.  It  did  not  fulfil  the 
Scottish  ideal  of  a  Church  and  State  bargain, 
which  was  that  the  Church  should  get  all  the 
benefit  while  the  State  shouldered  all  the  burden  ; 
but  it  was  a  much  better  bargain  than  any  Pro- 
tectant church  had  a  right  to  exped.  The  fad 
that  an  intransigent  minority  refused  to  be 
included  in  it  was  all  in  its  favour,  and  if  it  had 
been  left  well  alone  the  problem  of  the  Scottish 
church  would  have  been  solved  for  ever.  Un- 
fortunately, soon  after  the  Union,  the  united 
Parliament  of  Great  Britain  re-introduced  lay 
patronage  in  Scotland.  Friftion  ensued,  and 
before  long  there  were  two  serious  secessions 
from  the  Establishment.  But  the  Establishment, 
now  basking  in  the  serene  light  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  was  unperturbed  and  presently  was  able 
to  observe  with  amusement  the  speftacle  of  the 
zeal  of  the  dissenting  brethren  expending  itself 
in  internal  quarrels  and  mutual  excommunica- 
tions. The  nineteenth  century  brought  this 
placid  temper  to  an  end.  "  Moderatism  "  fell 
into  a  decline,  the  Evangelical  party  gained 
control  of  the  General  Assembly,  and  the  claims 
of  the  ecclesiastical  power  were  revived  in  the 

58 


SMITH     O       AIBERDEEN 

tno§t  extreme  form.  In  1838  a  bold  attempt  was 
made  to  abolish  lay  patronage  by  the  legislative 
authority  of  the  Church,  but  was  frustrated  by 
an  appeal  to  the  civil  courts  on  the  part  of  the 
aggrieved  patrons.  A  long  and  embittered 
Struggle  followed,  in  which  the  Kirk  did  not 
improve  its  position  by  unfrocking  those  ministers 
who  chose  to  obey  the  law  as  laid  down  by  the 
civil  courts.  The  Government  was  hotly  pressed 
to  redress  the  "  grievances  "  of  the  Kirk,  but 
Peel  was  not  the  man  to  yield  to  ecclesiastical 
arrogance,  and  said  plainly  that  he  was  not  going 
to  ask  Parliament  to  grant  the  Church  of  Scodand 
an  authority  that  it  had  denied  to  the  Pope  of 
Rome.  There  being  no  help  for  it,  the  Kirk 
as  a  whole  was  disposed  to  accept  the  situation 
and  hope  for  better  things.  But  the  "  non- 
intrusion "  party,  numbering  about  a  third  of 
the  ministry  and  a  like  proportion  of  the  laity, 
was  irreconcilable.  It  seceded  from  the  Estab- 
lishment, proclaimed  itself  the  "  Church  of 
Scotland  Free  "  and  proceeded  to  duplicate  the 
organisation  of  the  Established  Church  in  every 
parish.  This  was  the  Disruption  of  1845,  which 
has  been  so  praised  and  magnified  that  in  many 
Scottish  minds  it  ranks  as  the  moSt  important 
event  in  the  history  of  Christianity  since  the  Day  of 
Pentecost.  The  only  comment  that  need  be  made 
here  is  that  the  leaders  of  the  Disruption  were  men 
of  courage,  energy  and  parts,  but  were  neither  as 
wise  as  serpents  nor  as  harmless  as  doves. 

59 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

In  spite  of  its  apparent  unity  the  Disruption 
was  far  from  being  a  homogeneous  movement. 
It  contained  a  diversity  of  motive,  temper  and 
diredion  that  later  embarrassed  the  poUcy  of  the 
Free  Church.  Head  and  shoulders  above  all 
the  other  Disruptioni§ls  was  Thomas  Chalmers, 
a  man  of  teeming  brain,  furious  energy  and  im- 
perious moody  temper.  To  a  capacity  for  organ- 
isation that  amounted  to  genius  he  added  the 
dangerous  gift  of  an  eloquence  that  in  an  age  of 
eloquence  was  regarded  as  incomparable.  He 
was  admittedly  the  moSt  brilliant  figure  in  the 
Church  of  Scodand.  He  had  played  an  adive 
but  by  no  means  dominant  part  in  the  Ten  Years' 
Conflid,  and  his  sudden  appearance  on  the  eve 
of  the  final  crisis  as  leader  of  the  non-intrusion 
party  has  always  been  something  of  a  myStery. 
He  was  far  too  able  and  politic  a  man  to  go  into 
the  wilderness  for  the  sake  of  an  abstraction.  He 
was  not  deeply  religious,  if  indeed  he  was 
religious  at  all.  By  nature  a  sceptic,  he  found 
the  passion  of  his  life  in  natural  science  and 
economics.  While  Still  a  young  man  he  had  made 
his  name  as  a  bold  and  original  economic  thinker, 
and  he  had  had  the  vision  to  foresee  the  economic 
and  social  dangers  of  the  industrial  revolution. 
It  may  be  said  without  injustice,  therefore,  that 
Chalmers  cared  little  about  the  freedom  of  the 
Kirk  per  se,  but  cared  a  great  deal  about  having 
an  organisation  that  he  could  direft  according  to 
his  own  will  and  make  the  instrument  of  his 

60 


SMITH     O       AIBERDEEN 

ambitious  projects  for  dealing  with  the  problems 
of  indu^rial  poverty.  He  duly  fashioned  the 
instrument  but  died  before  he  could  use  it.  His 
social  programme  died  with  him.  One  good 
thing  he  did  achieve  that  was  maintained — the 
raising  of  the  Standard  of  professional  education 
for  the  ministry.     This  had  important  results. 

Chalmers'  lieutenants  were  more  or  less 
inspired  by  his  ideals,  but  there  was  a  darker 
element  in  the  enthusiasm  of  the  Disruption  that 
could  not  be  disregarded — an  element  of  blind 
and  malignant  read:ion.  There  were  men  like 
John  Kennedy  of  Dingwall  and  James  Begg,  who 
left  the  Establishment  quivering  with  passion  at 
the  State's  recalcitrance  and  animated  by  nothing 
but  the  hope  of  a  Canossa.  They  looked  forward 
sincerely  and  confidently  to  a  new  Establishment 
in  which  the  civil  power  would  be  the  obedient 
servant  of  the  Church  for  the  enforcement  of  the 
most  rigorous  Calvinism ;  and  anything  that 
threatened  the  realisation  of  their  ideal  had  their 
bitterest  opposition.  These  men  were  not  loved, 
but  they  were  heartily  feared,  and  at  any  crisis 
they  could  always  rally  timid  and  conventional 
orthodoxy  to  their  side. 

But  the  most  difficult  problem  of  the  Disrup- 
tion leaders  was  the  heterogeneous  character  of 
their  general  following.  There  was  no  parish 
in  Scotland  in  which  the  Free  Church  failed  to 
find  recruits,  but  its  particular  Strength  was 
drawn  from  the  industrial  areas  and  the  High- 

6i 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

lands.  The  former  were  of  prime  importance, 
in  fad  it  was  their  support  that  made  the  Dis- 
ruption praftical  politics.  With  all  resped  for 
the  ministers  who  "came  out"  in  1843  it  is 
permissible  to  suggest  that  their  exodus  has  been 
painted  in  colours  unduly  heroic.  Certain  initial 
sacrifices  were  inevitable.  Some  temporary  in- 
convenience and  even  risk  of  privation  had  to  be 
reckoned  with ;  but  on  the  whole  it  cannot  be 
said  that  the  seceding  ministers  suffered  much 
financial  loss  or  ever  supposed  that  they  would. 
Chalmers,  an  adept  financier,  had  carefully  ex- 
amined his  resources  beforehand,  and  he  was 
satisfied  that  he  could  carry  with  him  the  bulk  of 
the  new  industrial  and  mercantile  plutocracy  and 
could  dip  his  hand  deep  enough  into  their  bulging 
pockets  to  make  good  the  loss  of  teinds  (tithes) 
and  endowments.  The  result  was  that  within 
a  surprisingly  short  time  the  Free  Church 
ministers  found  themselves  installed  in  churches 
and  manses  not  much  inferior  to  those  they  had 
surrendered  and  drawing  equally  good  Stipends. 
Naturally,  the  givers  of  these  good  gifts  had  to  be 
considered.  To  keep  them  in  humour,  to  flatter 
their  pride  and  conciliate  their  prejudices,  was 
accepted,  therefore,  as  the  firSt  rule  of  sound  Free 
Church  economy.  For  when  the  golden  calf 
really  has  brought  you  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt 
it  is  decent  (as  well  as  prudent)  to  give  it  worship. 
If  the  Lowland  towns  were  the  Free  Church's 
assets,  the  Highlands  were  its  chief  liability  and 

62 


SMITH     O      AIBERDEEN 

an  exceedingly  heavy  one.  In  the  Highlands  the 
Disruption  was  embraced  with  the  enthusiasm 
which  the  natives  of  that  part  of  Scotland  had 
never  failed  to  show  for  anything  that  savoured 
of  rebellion  against  State  authority.  A  poverty- 
stricken  and  backward  population  dispersed  over 
a  wide  area  produced  numerous  and  needy  con- 
gregations that  had  to  be  supported  out  of  Low- 
land abundance.  The  Highlanders  accepted  the 
bounty  in  the  spirit  of  caterans  levying  black- 
mail. They  considered  that  their  piety — ^which 
manifested  itself  chiefly  as  bigotry  and  insolence 
— entitled  them  to  extort  all  the  money  they 
could  from  the  well-to-do  who  professed  regard 
for  pure  religion.  Although  their  adhesion  to 
the  Presbyterian  order  was  comparatively  recent, 
and  their  whole  outlook  and  religious  temper 
were  foreign  to  the  historic  Kirk,  their  zeal  for 
orthodoxy  was  immense ;  and  the  grandsons  of 
the  men  who,  a  century  earlier,  had  marched  in 
what  every  pious  Presbyterian  regarded  as  the 
legions  of  Antichrist,  now  had  the  effrontery  to 
pose  as  the  special  guardians  of  the  Ark  of  the 
Covenant.  In  the  General  Assembly,  where  their 
geographical  distribution  secured  them  a  repre- 
sentation out  of  all  proportion  to  their  numbers, 
they  were  vocal  and  truculent.  Any  policy  that 
did  not  accord  with  their  views  was  met  with 
threats  of  schism.  As  schism  was  a  thing  to  be 
avoided  at  all  coSts,  the  second  article  in  Free 
Church  economy  was  to  keep  the  Highlands  quiet. 

63 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

There  were,  then,  three  attitudes  of  mind 
represented  in  the  Free  Church.  There  was 
fi^  the  great  mass  of  weahhy  middle -class 
religion,  which  was  mainly  concerned  that  its  pious 
fads  should  be  consulted  and  was  even  prepared 
to  be  tolerant  so  long  as  it  was  not  frightened.  In 
the  Assembly  the  representatives  of  these  people 
formed  a  sort  of  "Government"  party — that  is, 
within  limits  they  could  be  manipulated  by  the 
clerical  junta  that  ruled  the  Church.  The  perma- 
nent opposition  consisted  of  the  "constitutional" 
or  reactionary  party,  mainly  Highland,  but  able  to 
count  on  occasional  and  substantial  assistance  in 
the  lobby  from  the  more  timid  members  of  the 
Lowland  majority.  The  third  attitude  of  mind 
was  the  tradition  of  adive  theological  scholarship 
established  by  Chalmers.  It  was  embodied  in  no 
party,  and  its  very  existence  as  a  separate  influence 
was  unsuspefted  imtil  it  suddenly  emerged  with 
disconcerting  force  in  the  early  'seventies. 

At  that  time  the  constitutionalists  were  in 
great  feather.  For  thirty  years  they  had  been  an 
army  in  retreat,  but  they  had  Stubbornly  contested 
every  inch  of  groimd  and  lately  they  had  won  an 
important  rearguard  vidory.  Dr.  R.  S.  Candlish, 
Chalmers*  successor  as  leader  of  the  Church, 
wished  to  bring  about  a  imion  of  all  the  dissident 
Presbyterian  bodies.  In  addition  to  the  Free 
Church  there  were  three  of  these.  By  far  the 
most  important  was  the  United  Presbyterian 
Church,  which  represented  the  two  secessions 

64 


SMITH     O       AIBERDEEN 

from  the  ESlablishment  during  the  eighteenth 
century.  It  drew  its  main  support  from  the 
substantial  petite  bourgeoisie.  It  was  a  large  and 
flourishing  body,  and,  having  no  parasitic  con- 
gregations, paid  handsome  Stipends  and  always 
had  money  in  hand.  MoSt  Free  Church  people 
had  no  fault  to  find  with  the  U.P.'s  except  a 
smack  of  vulgarity  —  deplorable  no  doubt  but 
not  entailing  damnation.  But  the  constitutional 
faction,  led  by  James  Begg,  deteded  something 
much  worse — unsoundness  of  do6trine.  Did  not 
the  U.P.'s  repudiate  all  civil  establishments  of 
religion  as  unscriptural,  and  had  they  not  begun 
to  show  an  alarming  weakness  for  hymns  and 
instrumental  music  in  the  public  worship  of  God  ? 
Congregations  in  remote  Highland  glens  learned 
with  horror  and  indignation  that  the  Free  Church 
was  being  invited  to  join  itself  with  a  body  that 
aftually  tolerated  an  organ  in  one  of  its  churches, 
though  it  had  not  yet  fallen  so  low  as  to  allow  the 
abomination  to  be  played.^  From  Assembly  to 
Assembly  the  duSt  and  din  of  battle  filled  the  air, 
and  ultimately  Candlish  had  to  acknowledge 
defeat.  So  far  as  the  United  Presbyterians  were 
concerned  his  scheme  of  union  was  wrecked  for 
a  generation.  All  that  was  achieved  was  the 
absorption  in  the  Free  Church  of  two  minor 
bodies  to  whom  the  constitutionalists  took  no 

^  The  offending  instrument  had  been  erefted  in  Claremont  Church, 
Glasgow,  as  far  back  as  1836,  but  its  use  was  interdicted  by  the 
U.P.  Synod.  "  Howbeit  the  high  places  were  not  removed  ",  and 
after  a  silence  of  twenty  years  the  organ  was  at  la§t  heard. 

65  F 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

exception,  because  their  tenets  were  as  narrow  as 
their  own  and  they  could  be  trusted  to  support 
the  good  cause.i  The  triumph  was  complete. 
The  con§titutionali§ts  had  waited  on  the  Lord 
and  the  Lord  had  renewed  their  strength. 

II 

Such  was  the  scene  in  the  year  1876,  when  the 
Robertson  Smith  drama  opened.  Let  us  turn 
to  the  protagonists. 

WilHam  Robertson  Smith,  Professor  of  Ori- 
ental Languages  and  Old  Testament  Exegesis 
at  the  Free  Church  College,  Aberdeen,  was  a 
young  man  not  yet  thirty,  but  even  so  he  had 
occupied  his  chair  for  six  years.  Theological 
professorships  are  the  only  permanent  dignities 
to  which  the  Scottish  minister  can  aspire  and  are 
in  consequence  much  coveted.  They  enjoy  an 
almost  episcopal  prestige,  and  naturally  they  fall 
as  a  rule  to  men  of  mature  age  whose  scholarship, 
or  some  part  of  it,  has  survived  the  ordeal  of  long 
years  of  pastoral  work.  Robertson  Smith,  there- 
fore, was  an  exception,"  and  if  the  Free  Church 
had  possessed  a  tithe  of  the  worldly  wisdom 
which  it  afterwards  so  foolishly  tried  to  assume, 

*  The  Reformed  Presbyterians  (or  Cameronians)  and  the  Original 
Secessioni^.  The  former  represented  the  intransigents  who 
refused  to  accept  the  Revolution  Settlement.  The  latter  were  a 
remnant  of  the  Secession  Church  who  had  not  entered  the  United 
Presbyterian  body.     Small  rumps  of  both  bodies  Still  exist. 

'  But  not  an  isolated  one.  T.  M.  Lindsay  (1843-1914),  father  of 
the  present  Master  of  Balliol,  was  appointed  Professor  of  Church 
History  at  the  Glasgow  College  in  1872.  He  was  Robertson  Smith's 
devoted  friend  and  advocate. 

66 


SMITH     O       AIBERDEEN 

it  would  never  have  eleded  a  youth  of  twenty- 
three  fresh  from  the  schools.  But  to  their  credit 
the  majority  of  the  fathers  and  brethren  were 
compelled  by  Smith's  extraordinary  attainments. 
Extraordinary,  indeed,  is  the  mildest  word  one 
can  use.  It  may  be  the  loving  exaggeration  of  a 
mother  that  has  given  "  book  "  as  the  fir§t  word 
he  articulated,  but  there  is  no  doubt  about  his 
amazing  precocity.  He  never  went  to  school, 
but  he  had  the  be§t  of  tutors  at  home  in  his 
father.  Dr.  William  Pirie  Smith,  Free  Church 
minister  of  Keig,  Aberdeenshire,  who  had  been 
a  schoolmaster  before  the  Disruption.  When 
fifteen  years  of  age  he  went  up  to  Aberdeen  Uni- 
versity, where  he  swept  all  before  him.  He  was 
Ferguson  Scholar  in  mathematics — a  Ferguson 
Scholarship  is  the  highest  diStinftion  the  Scottish 
Student  can  win — but  nothing  would  induce  him 
to  go  to  Cambridge  or  shake  his  determination  to 
enter  the  ministry.  This  was  a  disappointment 
to  many  of  his  friends,  especially  to  Tait,  who  as 
one  of  the  examiners  for  the  Ferguson  Scholarship, 
had  seen  in  Smith  a  mathematician  and  physicist, 
not  merely  of  diStindtion  but  of  genius. 

Smith  later  accepted  Tait's  invitation  to  be- 
come his  assistant  at  Edinburgh  University,  a 
position  which  he  held  for  two  years,^  and  which, 

^  Papers  written  by  Smith  while  assistant  to  Tait  include  one  on 
"  Eleftrical  Stream-lines "  which  Prof.  ChryStal  has  described  as 
a  classic,  and  a  brilliant  scientific  polemic  entitled  "  Hegel  and  the 
Metaphysics  of  the  Fluxional  Calculus  ",  which  provoked  a  heavy 
reply  from  Dr.  Hutchison  Stirling. 

67 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

among  other  interests,  made  him  acquainted  with 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson  as  a  pupil  who  regarded 
the  physical  laboratory  as  a  suitable  forum  for 
theological  discussion.  But  meanwhile  he  had 
begun  his  theological  course  at  New  College,  and 
the  mathematician  was  being  eclipsed  by  the 
scholar  in  a  manner  that  left  his  instructors  dumb 
with  astonishment.  In  1867  he  went  to  Bonn  for 
the  summer  semester,  dividing  his  time  there 
between  theology  and  mathematics.  In  1867  he 
was  at  Gottingen,  hearing  Lotze  and  Ritschl  and 
adding  the  latter,  as  he  afterwards  added  Well- 
hausen  and  Lagarde,  to  the  list  of  his  admiring 
teachers.  There  was  nothing  that  he  undertook 
of  which  he  did  not  immediately  become  a  maSter. 
His  mind  seemed  to  be  the  moSt  perfeft  intel- 
le6hial  machine  ever  designed  by  the  Almighty 
for  the  equipment  of  a  mortal.  It  absorbed,  co- 
ordinated, generalised,  transmuted  and  re-created 
knowledge  with  incredible  swiftness,  and  every 
process  was  informed  with  the  exadtitude  and 
candour  of  the  mathematician.  It  was  precisely 
this  mingling  in  him  of  the  mathematician  with 
the  scholar  that  made  Robertson  Smith  so  hard 
to  deal  with.  The  heart  of  the  typical  scholar 
is  a  neSt  of  doubts.  Smith's  Edinburgh  master 
in  Oriental  Studies,  A.  B.  Davidson,  is  a  good 
example.  He  doubted  everything,  and  then 
doubted  his  doubts.  Not  so  the  pupil,  to  whom 
knowledge  was  nothing  if  not  dynamic  and  pro- 
jeftive,   and   fa6ts   were   interesting   mainly   as 

68 


"smith    o'    aiberdeen" 

material  for  inferences.  To  say  that  Robertson 
Smith  had  no  love  of  knowledge  for  its  own  sake 
would  not  be  true,  but  clearly  he  regarded  a 
knowledge  that  exhaufted  itself  in  the  a6t  of 
knowing  as  hardly  worthy  of  the  name.  This 
habit  of  looking  at  everything  as  an  equation  to 
be  solved  could  not  fail  to  create  an  impression 
of  intelledual  arrogance  which  he  aggravated 
by  his  virtuoso  displays  of  masterful  dialedic  and 
ready  wit.  His  enemies,  starting  full  of  con- 
fidence— he  was  such  a  little  fellow,  so  young 
and  so  frail-looking  that  easy  victory  seemed 
certain — presently  found  themselves,  so  to  speak, 
reeling  back  to  the  ropes  imder  a  hail  of  diale6i;ic 
blows.  It  was  all  very  gallant  and  wonderful, 
and  gained  Smith  hoSls  of  admirers,  but  it  was 
not  always  good  policy.  In  a  way  his  aggressive 
intelle£tualism  overreached  itself.  His  orthodox 
adversaries  were  not  men  to  be  easily  daunted, 
and  defeat  only  provoked  them  to  renew  the 
assault  with  intensified  bitterness.  They  could 
not  now  attack  him  as  an  impostor,  but  they 
could  say  that  he  had  sold  himself  to  the  Devil. 
They  did  not  put  it  quite  so  crudely,  of  course, 
though  once  or  twice  they  came  very  near  it. 
What  they  said  was  that  he  was  far  too  clever  to 
be  good,  and  everybody  knows  what  a  deadly 
charge  that  can  be.  Le§t  anyone  should  imagine 
that  there  was  in  it  this  substance,  that  Smith's 
interests  were  primarily  intelleftual  and  that 
religion  held  a  secondary  place  in  his  life,  let  it 

69 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

be  remembered  that  in  order  to  undertake  the 
ministry  of  the  Church  he  had  renounced  a  career 
in  which  his  intelleftual  gifts  would  have  found 
full  satisfaction  and  certain  success.  He  was  in 
faft  a  profoundly  religious  man,  and  this  not  in 
any  vague  sense,  but  according  to  the  evangelical 
faith  which  he  never  forsook.  It  is  true  that  in 
Germany  he  had  found  it  necessary  to  abandon 
the  old  Standards  and  adopt  those  of  Ritschl  for 
the  justification  of  his  evangelicalism.  But  that 
was  an  intelledual  affair,  which  he  never  would 
admit  had  anything  to  do  with  the  substance  of 
his  religious  belief.  He  was  an  evangelical ;  he 
had  been  brought  up  as  an  evangelical ;  he  would 
remain  an  evangelical ;  and  any  suggestion, 
whether  by  enemy  or  friend,  that  he  was  anything 
else  infuriated  him.  A  curious  instance  of  this 
occurred  when  the  agitation  againSt  him  was  at 
its  height.  Principal  Tulloch,  an  amiable  and 
far-seeing  man,  wrote  an  appreciative  article  on 
Robertson  Smith's  work  for  the  Contemporary 
Rjn'iew.  Smith  took  the  firSt  public  occasion  to 
make  a  singularly  ungracious  reply  to  the  tune  of 
non  tali  auxilio.  Why?  Because  Dr.  Tulloch 
belonged  {a)  to  the  EStabUshment  and  {h)  to  the 
Broad  Church  group  thereof.  No,  Smith  would 
row  in  the  same  galley  with  Wellhausen,  Ritschl 
and  Kuenen,  but  not  with  a  "  Moderate ". 
Tantaene  animh  ! 

So   much   for   the   controversial   aspefts    of 
Robertson  Smith.     For  the  reSt,  he  was,  as  has 

70 


SMITH     O      AIBERDEEN 

been  said,  a  tiny  little  chap,  dark-haired  and  dark- 
eyed,  of  swarthy,  almost  Oriental  complexion, 
lively  and  merry  as  a  grig,  and  a  famous  judge  of 
wine  and  tobacco. 

Although  the  reaftionaries  were  for  the  moft 
part  Highlanders,  their  acknowledged  leader  was 
a  pure -bred  Lowlander  of  "  Cameronian  "  ex- 
tra6tion.  James  Begg,  minister  of  Newington 
Free  Church,  commonly  Styled  "  Doftor  '*  in 
virtue  of  a  degree  conferred  by  the  Lafayette 
College,  Penn.,  in  recognition  of  his  adamantine 
orthodoxy,  was  bom  near  Airdrie  in  the  bleak 
uplands  of  Lanarkshire.  The  region  that  extends 
twenty  miles  to  the  eaft  and  south  of  Glasgow  is 
now  covered  by  the  We§t  of  Scotland  coalfield, 
and  its  population  has  been  changed  by  industrial 
immigration,  but  Begg  belonged  to  the  old  native 
Stock,  the  surliest,  coarseSt  and  moSt  fanatical  in 
Scotland.  He  was  typical  of  the  breed,  a  man  of 
mean  intelleft  and  little  culture.  Some  good 
qualities  he  had — courage,  tenacity,  a  shrewd 
business  head  and  a  rough  clownish  humour  that 
enabled  his  sorely  tried  obituary  writers  to 
describe  him  as  "  genial  withal ".  He  also  had 
some  pulpit  gifts,  and  was  a  forceful,  though  not 
acute,  debater.  But  he  was  a  truculent  and 
vindiftive  bully  whose  influence  in  the  councils 
of  the  Church  was  won  and  maintained  by  a 
system  of  terrorism  and  coarse  intrigue.  His 
callous  contempt  for  the  ordinary  decencies  was 
shocking  even  to  those  who  shared  his  bigotry. 

71 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

He  had  been  Moderator  in  1865,  when  he 
achieved  the  diftindion  of  being  rebuked  by 
the  Assembly  for  profanity  in  his  address  from 
the  chair.i  As  a  pushful,  money-making  Lanark- 
shire farmer  Begg  would  have  done  well  and 
might  have  passed  for  a  useful  member  of  society  ; 
but  as  an  ecclesiastic  it  does  not  appear  that  he 
ever  in  all  his  ministry  of  fifty-odd  years  devised 
or  did  anything  but  mischief.  In  the  Assembly 
he  had  two  zealous  lieutenants  —  Dr.  John 
Kennedy  of  Dingwall,  a  pulpit  saint  of  great 
repute  in  the  Highlands,  and  Dr.  Horatius  Bonar, 
whose  celebrated  hymns  breathe  a  meekness  and 
Christian  forbearance  that  are  less  noticeable  in 
the  reports  of  his  Assembly  speeches. 

The  "  leader "  of  the  Church  was  Robert 
Rainy,  Principal  of  New  College,  where  he  also 
held  the  chair  of  Church  History.  His  ledhires, 
it  is  said,  were  apt  to  be  perfunctory ;  but  no 
man  can  attend  to  everything,  and  Rainy,  who 
enjoyed  that  serene  indolence  of  temper  that  so 
often  marks  the  Statesman,  did  not  bother  him- 
self much  in  trying.  He  muSt  have  known  that 
in  any  case  his  Students  could  learn  far  more 

^  On  the  motion  of  Lord  Dalhousie  (Fox  Maule)  it  was  ordered 
that  the  offensive  passage  should  be  excised  from  the  printed  version 
of  the  address.  But  Begg's  bigotry  did  not  prevent  him  from 
marrying  into  an  Anglican  family.  His  firSt  wife  was  Maria,  daughter 
of  the  Rev.  Ferdinand  Faithfull,  reftor  of  Epsom,  and  siSter  of  Emily 
FaithfuU.  Their  son,  Ferdinand  Faithfull  Begg  (died  1926),  was  for 
many  years  a  prominent  member  of  the  London  Stock  Exchange 
and  was  Unionist  M.P.  for  the  St.  Rollox  Division  of  Glasgow, 
189J-1900. 

72 


SMITH     O       AIBERDEEN 

ecclesiastical  history  from  his  example  than  from 
his  or  anybody  else's  precepts.  For  nobody  ever 
both  played  and  looked  the  part  of  the  ecclesi- 
astical Statesman  to  greater  perfeftion  than  Rainy 
did.  He  had  a  noble  head  with  exquisitely  clear- 
cut  features  that  in  old  age  acquired  an  almost 
angelic  beauty.  His  demeanour  was  composed 
and  charming  in  a  degree  that  is  not  often  found 
in  Scotsmen.  Nothing,  whether  good  or  evil, 
ever  perturbed  him,  and  no  occasion  of  severity 
— and  he  could  be  severe — ever  betrayed  him 
into  a  trace  of  passion,  though,  when  necessary, 
he  could  always  suggest  that  he  felt  deeply  on  the 
matter  in  question  but  preferred  to  leave  it  at 
that.  His  mind  for  affairs  was  like  a  garden 
spider's  web,  both  capacious  and  subtle,  and  on 
the  whole  justified  the  claim  of  his  admirers  that, 
man  for  man,  there  was  little  to  choose  between 
Rainy  and  his  far  cousin  Gladstone.  ^  The  com- 
parison is  juSt,  not  only  on  the  credit  but  also  on 
the  debit  side.  Thus  Robertson  Smith,  who  had 
occasion  to  Study  Rainy's  manoeuvres  with  painful 
interest,  came  to  hate  him  as  Parnell  in  similar 
circumstances  hated  Gladstone.  He  called  him 
a  "  Jesuit  '*,  which  was  not  fair  either  to  the 
Society  of  Jesus  or  the  leader  of  the  Free  Church. 

*  To  be  precise,  Rainy  was  the  son  of  Gladstone's  fourth  cousin, 
Dr.  Harry  Rainy,  Professor  of  Medical  Jurisprudence  at  Glasgow 
University.  Their  common  ancestor  was  a  seventeenth- century 
Highland  laird,  Gilbert  Robertson  of  Kindeace.  Rainy  and  Glad- 
Stone  were  both  of  mixed  Highland  and  Lowland  descent,  but  in 
Rainy  the  Highlander  predominated. 

73 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

"  Casuia  "  would  have  been  the  more  appropriate 
term,  for  Rainy  was  Gladstone's  equal  in  the  art 
of  making  fine  verbal  diStinftions  to  which  he 
attached  extraordinary,  sometimes  comic,  im- 
portance. "  Then  we  omit  that  ?  "  said  some- 
body once  at  a  committee  meeting,  referring  to  a 
controversial  clause  in  a  draft  document.  "  No," 
replied  the  old  man,  "  we  shall  simply  not  include 
it."  There  was  much  truth  in  the  sneer  of  the 
hostile  newspaper  which  spoke  of  "  the  curious 
mind  of  Principal  Rainy  worming  like  a  corkscrew 
through  material  soft  enough  to  be  perforated 
by  a  chisel  thrust ".  It  is  easy  to  censure  his 
tortuousness,  and  it  was  only  natural  that  its 
occasional  vidims  should  be  bitter  about  it,  but 
if  he  had  not  been  tortuous  he  would  have  been 
unfit  for  the  task  imposed  upon  him,  which  was 
to  preserve  the  Free  Church  in  being  until  the 
sense  of  corporate  unity  should  supersede  the 
spirit  of  controversy  in  which  it  took  its  origin. 
From  the  ecclesiastic's  point  of  view  the  situation 
in  the  'seventies  was  extremely  anxious.  A  fatal 
schism  had  only  been  averted  by  the  abandon- 
ment of  Candlish's  union  policy,  with  the  result 
that  the  authority  of  the  "  diredion  "  of  the 
Church  had  been  badly  damaged.  It  was  the 
first  duty  of  the  new  leader  cun£tando  reHituere  rem. 
When  the  attack  on  Robertson  Smith  began 
Rainy  knew  little  and  cared  less  about  the  merits 
of  his  young  Aberdeen  colleague's  case  :  what 
he  did  care  about  was  that  he  should  not  be 

74 


SMITH     O      AIBERDEEN 

mancEuvred  into  a  general  engagement  with  Begg 
and  his  dervishes.  Domiaated  by  that  con- 
sideration he  failed  at  the  outset  to  see  that 
Robertson  Smith  had  introduced  an  entirely  new 
element  into  the  situation,  and  when  he  did 
appreciate  the  true  State  of  affairs,  it  was  too  late. 
He  was  already  committed  to  a  policy  that  was 
bound  to  end  in  ineptitude  and  discredit. 

Only  two  more  personal  references  need  be 
made.  According  to  Free  Church  pradice  the 
leader's  chief  of  §taif  was  always  a  Glasgow 
minister  charged  with  the  special  duty  of  keeping 
Glasgow  and  the  industrial  WeSl  in  order.  In 
1876  this  position  was  held  by  Dr.  John  Adam, 
minister  of  Wellpark  Free  Church,  Glasgow,  a 
capable  but  somewhat  domineering  man.  Lastly, 
there  was  the  Rev.  Sir  Henry  Wellwood  Mon- 
creiff  of  Tullibole,  tenth  baronet.  Principal  Clerk 
of  Assembly.  This  highly  respedtable  personage 
enjoyed  a  great  preStige  for  various  reasons.  He 
was  one  of  the  small  band  of  the  old  nobility  and 
gentry  that  the  Free  Church  had  managed  to 
detach  from  the  Establishment.  He  belonged  to 
a  family  that  had  produced  a  whole  dynaSty  of 
Scots  judges  and  was  himself  a  perfedl  master 
of  Scottish  ecclesiastical  law  and  procedure.  In 
virtue  of  his  official  position  he  was  an  influential 
member  of  the  "  diredion  "  of  the  Church,  which 
was  a  great  source  of  comfort  to  the  readionaries, 
whose  principles  he  shared,  however  much  he 
might  dislike  their  tactics.     Generally  he  might 

75 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

be  described  as  a  typical  "  squarson  "  of  the  be§t 
sort — a  narrow-minded,  level-headed,  honourable 
man,  with  a  marked  antipathy  to  poachers  and 
heretics. 

One  of  the  remarkable  things  about  the  out- 
cry againft  Robertson  Smith  is  that  it  was  not 
raised  sooner.  In  his  inaugural  ledhire  in  1870, 
"  What  History  teaches  us  to  seek  for  in  the 
Bible  ",  he  had  made  it  plain  that  he  had  adopted 
and  intended  to  teach  the  results  of  the  German 
Higher  Critics.  At  that  time  Scotland  was  in 
the  grip  of  the  mo§t  rigid  Protectant  scholasticism, 
of  which  the  literal  inspiration  and  inerrancy  of 
Scripture  was  the  cardinal  doftrine.  German 
theology  was  known  only  by  hearsay  as  an 
abomination  —  non  nominandum  inter  ChriHianos^ 
much  less  to  be  examined  at  firSt  hand.  One 
would  have  expefted,  therefore,  that  the  proposal 
of  a  Free  Church  professor  adhially  to  teach  the 
accursed  thing  to  candidates  for  the  ministry 
would  have  raised  a  Storm  at  once.  But  nothing 
happened.  Robertson  Smith  taught  peacefully 
for  more  than  six  years,  during  which  time  his 
reputation  as  a  scholar  grew  rapidly.  He  was 
invited  to  take  part  in  the  two  moSt  notable  works 
of  combined  scholarship  then  going  forward — 
the  Revised  Version  of  the  Old  Testament  and  the 
great  ninth  edition  of  the  Encyclopedia  Britannica. 
The  editor  of  the  latter — Professor  Baynes  of 
St.  Andrews — offered  him  the  assistant  editorship, 
which  Smith  eagerly  accepted.     He  wrote  the 

76 


SMITH     O      AIBERDEEN 

article  "  Angel "  for  vol.  ii.,  and  for  vol.  iii. 
the  article  "  Bible ".  As  neither  contained 
anything  that  he  had  not  taught  for  six  years  as 
a  professor,  he  had  no  reason  to  suppose  that 
the  expression  of  his  views  in  a  work  of  reference 
would  make  any  difference,  any  more  than  he 
had  reason  to  suppose  that  Principal  Brown  of 
Aberdeen,  who  knew  all  about  his  ledhires  and 
had  seen  his  articles  in  proof,  would  afterwards 
be  one  of  his  mo§t  aftive  accusers.  "  Angel  '* 
passed  unnoticed,  and  for  some  months  it  seemed 
as  if  "  Bible  "  would  do  the  same.  But  by  an 
evil  chance  the  Edinburgh  CouranL  sent  its  review 
copy  of  vol.  iii.  to  Dr.  A.  H.  Charteris,  Professor 
of  Biblical  Criticism  at  Edinburgh  University, 
who  at  once  turned  to  the  article  "  Bible ". 
Charteris  was  one  of  the  younger  divines  of  the 
Established  Church,  but  he  was  the  very  embodi- 
ment of  orthodox  pietism,  and  "  Bible  ",  with 
its  implied  acceptance  of  the  Graf-Wellhausen 
theory  of  the  Pentateuch,  shocked  him  exceed- 
ingly. It  was  some  months  before  he  could 
ma^er  his  indignation  sufficiently  to  be  able  to 
write,  but  at  la^,  in  the  CouranL  of  April  i6, 
1876,  his  review  appeared.  It  told  the  whole 
horrid  ftory,  and  left  it  should  not  be  horrid 
enough,  eked  it  out  with  a  couple  of  subtle  mis- 
quotations from  the  article  and  asked  what  the 
Free  Church  proposed  to  do  about  it. 

The  answer  the  Free  Church  cabal  would  fain 
have  given  was  the  right  one,  "  Nothing.     Mind 

77 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

your  own  business."  But  there  was  always 
Begg.  That  champion  of  Christendom  was 
already  bellowing  a  "  Fee,  fi,  fo,  fum  "  that  froze 
the  official  marrow.  Charteris's  wretched  review 
having  appeared  on  the  eve  of  the  General 
Assembly,  Begg  at  once  let  it  be  known  that 
he  would  invite  the  Venerable  Court  to  consider 
what  manner  of  man  it  had  appointed  to  the 
chair  of  Hebrew  at  Aberdeen.  Agonised  depre- 
cations followed.  It  was  represented  that  there 
was  a  Standing  committee  of  Assembly  charged 
with  the  duty  of  watching  the  life  and  dodtrine 
of  the  professors,  and  that  constitutionally  no 
a6Hon  could  be  taken  until  that  body  had  made 
full  inquiry  and  issued  its  findings.  As  this  was 
undoubtedly  the  case,  Begg  graciously  consented 
to  hold  his  peace  for  a  season  on  the  understand- 
ing that  the  College  Committee  would  proceed 
with  all  dispatch.  A  respite  indeed,  but  one  of 
that  miserable  sort  that  the  blackmailer  gives, 
well  knowing  how  he  can  exploit  it. 

The  lot  of  the  College  Committee  was  not  a 
happy  one.  The  sinister  shadow  of  Begg  brooded 
over  their  deliberations.  On  every  official  occa- 
sion he  asked  with  deepening  menace  in  his 
tones  what  progress  had  been  made,  and  received 
evasive  replies.  The  committee  consisted  of 
men  of  all  shades  of  opinion.  Some  sympathised 
with  Robertson  Smith,  more  did  not.  But  all 
were  agreed  that  a  heresy  hunt  was  to  be  avoided, 
if  possible.     For  a  heresy  hunt  is  always  a  messy 

78 


"smith    o'    aiberdeen" 

business.  If  it  succeeds,  the  heretic  is  apt  to  be 
regarded  as  a  martyr,  which  is  inconvenient ; 
if  it  fails,  those  who  have  promoted  it  get 
nothing  but  bad  eggs  and  dead  cats,  which  is 
deplorable.  The  committee  were  very  much 
alive  to  these  considerations.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  there  was  no  heresy  hunt  what  would 
Begg  do,  or  rather  what  would  he  not  do  ? 
He  was  more  dangerous  than  he  had  ever  been 
before,  for  it  soon  became  apparent  that  he  could 
muster  not  only  the  usual  "  Highland  ho§t "  but 
mo§t  of  the  white-haired  Disruption  doftors, 
and  as  it  was  unlikely  that  the  Lord  would  require 
the  souls  of  all  these  robust  old  gendemen  in  the 
immediate  future,  a  mere  policy  of  playing  for 
time  did  not  promise  much.  Rainy's  own  mind 
was  soon  made  up.  Judicial  action  againSt 
Robertson  Smith  mu§t  be  avoided,  but  the  ground 
could  be  prepared  for  suitable  administrative 
adion. 

In  the  carrying  out  of  this  policy  the  firSt 
person  to  whom  Rainy  turned  for  help  was  the 
culprit  himself.  In  a  friendly  and  informal  way 
it  was  suggested  to  Robertson  Smith  that  he 
might  apologise — nothing  abjeft,  of  course,  juSt 
a  civil  reassuring  letter  to  the  College  Committee. 
This  was  what  is  vulgarly  called  a  "  try-on  ",  a 
procedure  which  with  ordinary  men  will  fre- 
quently give  the  desired  results.  But  Smith  was 
not  an  ordinary  man.  Being  both  acute  and 
courageous  he  uttered  by  way  of  reply  the  one 

79 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

word  that  Rainy  mo§t  dreaded — "  Why  ?  "  The 
dilemma  thus  handed  back  was  indeed  perfed. 
Smith,  having  been  invited  to  apologise,  was 
entided  to  know  in  precise  terms  what  his  offence 
was,  but  Rainy  could  not  satisfy  him  without 
gready  increasing  the  risk  of  a  heresy  trial. 

Had  Smith  rigidly  maintained  this  initial 
attitude  of  "  no  charge,  no  answer  ",  the  College 
Gjmmittee  would  have  had  no  option  but  to 
face  up  a  rough  house  from  Begg  and  Co.  and 
report  that  no  aftion  should  be  taken.  But  ju^ 
at  this  jun£hire  Smith  made  his  only  blunder,  and 
it  was  a  bad  one.  A  pamphlet  entided  Infidelity 
in  the  Aberdeen  Free  Church  College  appeared.  It 
was  the  work  of  a  person  of  no  importance  who, 
with  that  shrinking  from  publicity  that  makes 
good  deeds  doubly  meritorious,  had  not  put  his 
name  to  it.  So  paltry  a  produd;ion  should  have 
been  beneath  Smith's  notice,  but  he,  with  the 
CouranL,  review  Still  rankling,  got  the  idea  that 
it  was  a  new  outrage  on  the  part  of  Charteris. 
He  dashed  oflF  for  the  press  a  long,  brilliant,  angry 
reply  on  that  hurried  assumption.  He  ought  to 
have  known  that  Charteris,  though  he  had  cul- 
pably misquoted  Smith's  words  in  his  review,  was 
incapable  of  anything  so  mean,  spiteful  and 
ignorant  as  the  "  Infidelity  "  pamphlet.  It  was 
a  mistake  that  enabled  his  enemies  to  say  that 
this  eminent  Higher  Critic,  when  put  to  a  simple 
test,  showed  himself  a  very  poor  judge  of  author- 
ship.    Smith  sent  a  proof  of  his  letter  to  Rainy, 

80 


SMITH     O      AIBERDEEN 

with  the  naive  suggestion  that  it  should  be 
accepted  pro  tanto  for  the  purposes  of  the  College 
Committee's  inquiry !  Rainy's  only  comment 
was  a  despairing  groan.  The  letter,  with  all  its 
indiscretions,  was  published,  and  at  once  Edin- 
burgh was  in  an  uproar.  The  readtionaries 
howled  for  Smith's  blood.  One  of  those  social 
pe^s  known  as  popular  preachers  saw  a  chance 
too  good  to  be  missed,  and  harangued  crowded 
congregations  on  "  Have  we  a  Bible  ?  "  The 
College  Committee  would  have  to  do  some- 
thing. Under  pressure  from  Begg  a  sub-com- 
mittee was  appointed  to  examine  the  articles 
"  Bible  "  and  "  Angel ".  Not  content  with  that, 
Begg  made  a  scandalous  attempt  to  intimidate 
the  Committee  by  means  of  a  carefully  packed 
"  public  meeting  ".  Smith  protected  that  a  fair 
inquiry  was  impossible  if  such  things  were 
tolerated,  and  it  was  with  some  difficulty  that 
he  was  pacified.  However,  he  submitted  a 
Statement  of  his  views  on  Biblical  criticism,  but 
in  spite  of  all  Rainy's  blandishments  and  artifices 
he  refused  to  be  drawn  into  any  admission, 
apology  or  quasi-apology.^  The  upshot  of  the 
College  Committee's  deliberations  was  a  report 
to  the  effed  that  there  was  no  ground  for  a  heresy 

^  Rainy  even  wrote  to  Robertson  Smith's  friend.  Professor  James 
Candlish,  who  was  also  a  member  of  the  College  Committee,  suggeft- 
ing  that  he  should  get  Smith  to  write  to  him  (Candlish)  a  suitable 
letter  of  which  he  (Rainy)  enclosed  a  draft  I  Rainy,  like  Becky 
Sharp,  was  apt  to  underestimate  the  intelligence  of  ordinary  mortals. 
The  letter  would  have  deceived  nobody. 

8l  G 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

process  against  Professor  Robertson  Smith,  but 
that  in  the  article  "  Bible  ",  more  especially  in 
his  treatment  of  Deuteronomy,  he  had,  though 
not  intentionally,  used  language  "  of  a  dangerous 
and  unsettling  tendency  ".  Smith's  rejoinder  to 
this  was  the  counter -check  quarrelsome:  he 
wrote  to  the  editor  of  the  Encyclopadia  Britannica 
proposing  to  reiterate  his  views  in  detail  in  a 
separate  article  on  "  Deuteronomy  ". 

The  College  Committee's  report  was  received 
by  the  Commission  of  Assembly  in  March  1877, 
and  on  Rainy's  motion  it  was  referred  to  the 
Presbytery  of  Aberdeen  to  consider  what  was 
"  the  safe  and  right  and  reasonable  thing  to  do  ". 
Now  the  Presbytery  of  Aberdeen  liked  Robertson 
Smith,  pardy  because  he  was  an  extraordinarily 
likeable  young  man  and  partly  because  they  were 
proud  of  him.  He  was  in  every  sense  one  of 
themselves.  Mo§t  of  them  had  known  him  all 
his  life.  Whatever  qualms  some  might  feel  at 
his  Higher  Critical  notions,  all  appreciated  that  it 
was  a  great  score  for  Aberdeen  that  the  son  of  an 
Aberdonian  manse  should  command  the  respe£t 
of  European  scholarship.  He  was  patre  do^ofilius 
doctor,  and  there  was  the  impressive  fad  that  Dr. 
Pirie  Smith,  whose  orthodoxy  was  above  suspicion 
and  who  had  given  up  more  than  mo§t  men  at 
the  Disruption,  was  his  son's  loyal  comrade  and 
sagacious  counsellor.  Being  bound,  in  the 
pedantic  Scottish  phrase,  to  "  obtemper "  the 
inStruftion  of  a  superior  court,  the  Presbytery 

82 


SMITH     O       AIBERDEEN 

debated  fitfully  for  two  months.  Nobody  showed 
much  enthusiasm  except  Principal  Brown  who, 
to  atone  for  years  of  laches,  evinced  a  sudden 
anxiety  for  sound  dodrine  and  assumed  the  role 
of  advocatus  diaboli.  The  worthy  man's  discretion 
was  nil,  but  no  Buzfuz  could  have  excelled  him 
in  his  zeal  for  the  personal  interests  of  his 
client.  Professor  Robertson  Smith's  treatment  of 
Deuteronomy  was  bad,  he  declared,  but  not  so  bad 
as  his  treatment  of  the  Devil.  Would  fathers  and 
brethren  believe  that  the  article  "  Angel "  made 
not  a  single  reference  to  the  reality  and  person- 
ality of  his  client  who,  orthodoxy  apart,  was  in 
common  decency  entided  at  lea§t  to  a  cross- 
reference  vide  SATAN? 

But  the  spirit  of  Gallio  was  upon  the  Presby- 
tery of  Aberdeen.  Even  the  sorrows  of  Satan 
failed  to  move  it,  and  when  the  General  Assembly 
of  1877  met  on  May  24  there  was  nothing  to 
report  but  progress.  It  seemed  that  the  Vener- 
able Court  would  not  for  the  present  be  troubled 
with  the  Robertson  Smith  affair.  But  such 
comfortable  expeditions  were  not  to  la§t.  They 
were  dissipated  in  the  very  rudeSt  manner  by  the 
appearance  of  Robertson  Smith  himself  demanding 
to  be  tried  for  heresy. 


Ill 

It  was  a  bold  as  well  as  a  youthful  move. 
Some  say  it  was  a  bad  one,  and  so  it  was  in  the 

83 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

sense  that  it  was  "  bad  for  the  coo  ",  the  "  coo  " 
in  this  case  being  Rainy.  All  his  diligent  schem- 
ing to  avoid  the  perilous  scandal  of  a  heresy  trial 
had  been  set  at  naught.  But  it  was  not  in  his 
nature  to  admit  defeat  before  the  end  of  the  game. 
Something  could  Still  be  done.  There  was  a 
maze  of  legal  procedure  to  be  gone  through  in 
the  course  of  which  it  might  be  managed  that 
the  heresy  hunters  should  lose  their  way.  The 
difficulty  was  Sir  Henry  Moncreiff,  who  was 
determined  that  if  he  could  help  it  they  should 
not.  The  old  lawyer  had  been  restive  under 
Rainy's  temporising  policy.  Now  that  it  had 
failed  he  felt  free  to  take  his  own  line,  and 
that  was  to  secure  that  the  trial  should  end  in 
a  convidtion.  Robertson  Smith's  a6Hon,  there- 
fore, was  doubly  successful.  It  embarrassed  his 
enemies  by  obliging  them  to  formulate  their 
charges  ;  and  by  splitting  the  official  clique  and 
thus  resolving  the  official  party  into  its  elements, 
it  created  for  the  time  being  an  entirely  new  align- 
ment of  parties  in  the  Assembly.  The  issue  was 
no  longer  liable  to  be  obscured  by  considerations 
of  ecclesiastical  policy.  The  way  was  cleared 
for  a  Straight  fight  between  liberalism  and  re- 
a6Hon.  This  was  exa6Uy  what  Smith  wanted. 
Altogether  the  immediate  consequences  of  his 
demand  to  be  put  on  trial  were  highly  gratifying 
except  in  one  respeft — it  involved  his  suspension 
from  teaching.  Curiously  enough  he  had  not 
foreseen  this,  and  it  surprised  and  vexed  him. 

84 


SMITH     O      AIBERDEEN 

However,  he  was  never  downcaft  for  long,  and 
presently  he  was  cheered  by  various  assurances 
that  if  Scotland  caft  him  out  England  would  be 
glad  to  have  him.  One  that  amused  Smith  a  good 
deal  seems  to  have  come  from  Jowett  through  a 
third  party — a  suggestion  that  if  the  worSl  came 
to  the  worst  he  could  easily  sign  the  Thirty-Nine 
Articles  and  get  the  next  vacant  Balliol  living  ! 

As  it  turned  out  Smith  had  need  of  all  his 
leisure.  He  was  his  own  lawyer,  and  in  the 
nature  of  the  case  his  defence  required  above  all 
things  technical  skill.  In  those  days  Scottish 
ecclesiastical  libels  Still  followed  the  old  Scottish 
form  of  criminal  indidfanent,  which  was  more 
logical,  less  simple  and  quite  as  verbose  as  the 
corresponding  English  document.  The  general 
scheme  was  a  syllogism — ^the  major  proposition 
reciting  the  charge,  firSt  generally  (abStra6i:  major) 
and  then  in  detail  (particular  major),  the  minor 
proposition  setting  out  particulars  of  justification 
corresponding  to  the  particular  major,  and  the 
conclusion  alleging  the  guilt  of  the  accused  and 
demanding  judgment.  On  being  served  with 
the  libel  the  accused  might  put  in  an  answer 
obje6ting  to  its  "  relevancy  "  in  law,  which  had 
to  be  disposed  of  before  issues  of  faft  could 
be  tried.  In  Smith's  case  the  only  questions  of 
faft  were  the  authorship  and  publication  of  the 
Encydopadia  Britannica  articles,  which  were  of 
course  admitted.  In  the  English  phrase,  there- 
fore, the  case  had  to  be  fought  on  demurrer. 

85 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

Smith  had  plenty  of  time  to  survey  the  ground 
before  being  called  upon  to  put  in  his  answer. 
The  wretched  Presbytery  of  Aberdeen  who  had 
already  spent  futile  weeks  arguing  about  him 
now  had  the  vexation  of  preparing  a  heresy  libel 
thru§t  upon  them.  At  fir^t  Principal  Brown  and 
his  group  thought  nothing  could  be  easier. 
Smith  had  rejeded  the  Mosaic  authorship  of 
Deuteronomy ;  to  reject  the  Mosaic  authorship 
of  Deuteronomy  was  to  say  that  the  Scriptures 
were  not  always  what  they  professed  to  be,  and 
that  was  to  deny  their  Divine  inspiration.  At  the 
la^  Step  of  the  reasoning  a  doubt  crept  in.  What 
precisely  was  "  inspiration  "  ?  Nobody  could 
say.  The  Westminster  Confession,  which  was 
the  Standard  by  which  Smith  had  to  be  judged, 
was  exasperatingly  vague  on  the  subject.  It  only 
said  that  the  Bible  "  contained  "  the  word  of 
God,  and  Smith,  the  slippery  rogue,  had  never 
said  it  didn't.  It  is  said  that  a  Scottish  ecclesiastic 
once  outwitted  the  Devil  by  setting  him  to  spin 
ropes  out  of  sea  sand.  If  so  the  Devil  got  his 
own  back  with  interest  by  working  off  Michael 
Scott's  trick  on  Dr.  Brown  and  the  Free  Presby- 
tery of  Aberdeen.  Poor  Dr.  Brown  !  Though 
a  clumsy  advocate,  he  was  a  conscientious  one, 
and  deserved  better  treatment  from  his  client. 
The  Presbytery  met  in  June,  and  delayed  con- 
sideration of  the  matter  till  August.  After  two 
months  a  draft  libel  was  produced  and  sent  to 
the  Procurator  of  the  Church  for  approval.     The 

86 


"smith    o'    aiberdeen'* 

"  ab^rad  major  "  charged  Smith,  inter  alia,  with 
"  subverting  '*  the  doftrine  of  inspiration.  The 
Procurator  struck  out  "  subverting  "  and  substi- 
tuted "  contradifting  '*.  The  amendment  nearly 
reduced  Dr.  Brown  to  tears.  "  Subvert ",  he 
wailed,  was  a  nice  vague  word  with  lots  of  pre- 
judice in  it,  but  "  contradi6t " — why,  it  was 
making  a  present  of  the  case  to  the  accused.  The 
anti- Smith  party  contemplated  their  creature  with 
disgust.  It  was  a  va§t  document  with  a  brave 
outfit  of  whereases  and  aforesaids,  albeits  and 
yet-true-it-is-and-of-a-verities,  but  in  its  bloated 
body  there  was  no  health. 

However,  one  has  to  make  the  beft  of  things. 
Something  might  be  done  with  the  alternative 
charges.  In  addition  to  (i)  "  contradifting " 
Smith  was  accused  generally  of  (2)  "  tending  to 
contradift  "  the  dodrine  of  inspiration,  and  (3) 
"  by  neutrality  of  attitude  and  rashness  of  State- 
ment tending  to  disparage  "  the  divine  authority 
and  inspired  character  of  Scripture.  In  parti- 
cular it  was  alleged  that  he  had  taught :  Primo, 
that  the  Levitical  syStem  was  not  a  Mosaic  insti- 
tution. Secundo,  that  Deuteronomy  was  not  the 
historical  record  that  it  professed  to  be.  Tertio, 
that  the  sacred  writers  were  liable  to  error  in 
question  of  fad  and  occasionally  sacrificed  accur- 
acy to  party  spirit.  §luarto,  that  some  parts  of 
Scripture  had  the  charafter  of  fiftion.  ^uinto, 
that  the  Song  of  Solomon  was  a  love-poem  and 
devoid  of  spiritual  significance.     Sexto,  that  New 

87 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

Te^ament  citations  were  not  conclusive  of  the 
authorship  of  the  Old  Testament  books .  Septimo, 
that  the  prophets  were  merely  men  of  spiritual 
insight  and  had  no  supernatural  revelations  of  the 
future.  O^iavo,  that  the  reality  of  angels  was  a 
matter  of  assumption  rather  than  of  dire<3:  teach- 
ing in  the  Scriptures.  By  his  answer  the  pannel 
(defendant)  pleaded  that  the  firSt  general  charge 
was  not  borne  out  by  the  particular  allegations, 
and  he  objefted  to  the  second  and  third  general 
charges  as  con^truftive  and  embarrassing. 

The  hearing  of  the  obje(3:ions  extended  over 
six  months,  during  which  time  Robertson  Smith 
showed  a  capacity  for  advocacy  that  would  have 
made  his  fortune  at  the  Bar.  His  opponents 
looked  on  helplessly  while  the  Presbytery  under 
his  adroit  persuasions  Struck  out  clause  after 
clause  with  monotonous  regularity.  By  the  end 
of  February  the  firSt  charge,  having  not  one  of 
its  eight  legs  left  to  Stand  upon,  had  collapsed. 
In  March  Smith  met  with  his  firSt  reverse,  the 
Presbytery  by  one  vote  overruling  his  objedion 
to  the  "  tendency  "  charge.  He  appealed  to  the 
Synod  of  Aberdeen.  When  the  Synod  met  in 
April  it  was  evident  that  the  Robertson  Smith 
aflfair  was  entering  a  new  and,  from  the  orthodox 
point  of  view,  very  disquieting  phase.  The 
gallery  was  unusually  well  filled  by  the  general 
public,  who  cheered  the  appellant  when  he  got 
up  and  sat  down,  and  whose  enthusiasm  was  un- 
restrained when  on  a  division  there  was  again  a 

88 


SMITH     O       AIBERDEEN 

majority  of  one,  but  this  time  in  Smith's  favour. 
Clearly  the  heretic  had  not  only  had  the  be^  of 
the  argument  so  far,  but  had  the  mob  at  his 
back  as  well.  A  few  days  later  the  "  neutrality  " 
charge  vanished,  never  to  be  heard  of  again. 
For  the  time  being  Smith's  vidory  was  complete. 

The  readionaries'  only  hope  now  was  that 
something  in  the  way  of  salvage  might  be  done 
in  the  General  Assembly  where,  of  course. 
Smith's  personal  influence  counted  for  less  than 
it  did  in  his  own  presbytery  and  synod,  and  where 
Sir  Henry  MoncreifF,  unlike  poor  Dr.  Brown, 
could  be  trusted  not  to  bungle  things.  Still,  the 
conditions  were  not  so  good  as  they  might  have 
been.  Smith  was  already  becoming  a  popular 
hero.  His  triumph  in  the  inferior  courts  of  the 
Church  was  bound  to  have  a  serious  moral  effeft 
with  the  waverers  and  trimmers ;  and  to  make 
matters  worse  the  great  Begg  was  under  a  naSty 
cloud,  having  lately  been  discovered  in  a  dis- 
creditable intrigue  of  which  the  objed  was  the 
return  of  himself  and  party  to  the  Eftablished 
Church.  As  for  Rainy  he  was  inscrutable.  He 
had  made  one  or  two  public  utterances  of  sibyl- 
line darkness,  and  there  was  a  rumour  that  since 
la§t  Assembly  he  had  been  "reading  up  the 
Scripture  question  ",  but  what  his  line  would  be 
could  not  even  be  guessed. 

The  Free  Church  General  Assembly  of  1878, 
departing  from  cu^om,  met  in  Glasgow.  A 
notorious  reactionary,  Horatius  Bonar's  brother 

89 


BROTHERSCOTS 

Andrew,  filled  the  Moderator's  chair,  but  his 
party  would  much  rather  have  had  him  on  the 
floor  of  the  House,  for  he  was  a  very  fair  Hebraist 
of  the  old  school  and,  though  a  lame  and  un- 
pleasing  speaker,  possessed  great  personal  in- 
fluence. Less  talented  than  his  brother,  he  was, 
in  popular  esteem,  even  more  of  a  "  saint ". 
(Children  were  named  after  him,  including  one 
who  became  Prime  Minister,  which  shows  what 
a  good  name  can  do.)  But  instead  of  fighting 
the  good  fight  Dr.  Andrew  Bonar  had  the  un- 
congenial task  of  seeing  that  everybody  got 
fair  play  within  the  limits  prescribed  by  Sir 
Henry  Moncreiif.  For  according  to  Presbyterian 
practice  the  effedtive  ruling  of  proceedings  lies, 
not  with  the  Moderator,  who  is  more  or  less  of  a 
rot  faineant>,  but  with  the  Principal  Clerk;  and  as 
that  functionary  plays  a  deliberative  as  well  as  an 
official  part  and  is  at  perfect  liberty  to  take  sides, 
the  side  to  which  he  is  opposed  has  a  poor  chance 
of  succeeding  on  any  point  of  order  it  may  be 
foolish  enough  to  raise. 

Sir  Henry  was  sensible  of  these  advantages. 
Like  m.any  ^i6tly  honourable  men  he  had  a 
callous  conscience  where  prejudice  was  con- 
cerned. As  against  a  person  like  Robertson 
Smith  procedure  could  be  rigged  without  scruple. 
Primo  and  secmdo,  in  obedience  to  his  ruling,  the 
Assembly  took  together.  Parties  having  been 
heard  pro  and  contra,  the  good  Sir  Henry,  with  a 
fine  show  of  impartiality,  moved  that  primo  be 

90 


SMITH     O      AIBERDEEN 

dismissed  (for  the  very  good  reason  that  the 
particular  averments  did  not  support  it),  but  that 
secundo  be  allowed  subjed  to  an  amendment  which 
introduced  some  new  matter  carefully  calculated 
to  prejudice  the  accused.  The  English  reader 
may  gasp,  and  say,  **  Can  such  things  be  ?  How 
can  one  alter  an  indictment  after  the  accused  has 
pleaded  to  it  ?  "  The  answer  is  that  Sir  Henry 
Moncreiff  dated  from  the  eighteenth  century  and 
eighteenth-century  Scots  lawyers  took  no  Stock 
of  such  trivialities.  It  is  significant,  too,  that  the 
Assembly  as  a  whole  saw  nothing  monstrous  in 
his  proposal. 

Rainy,  however,  protected  in  language  of 
unwonted  vehemence.  To  him  it  was  doubly 
offensive.  Not  only  was  it  profoundly  shocking 
to  his  sense  of  justice — for,  with  all  his  subtleties. 
Rainy  was  in  essence  a  ju§t  man — but  it  was  a 
gross  affront  to  his  supposed  leadership.  Sir 
Henry  had  afted  on  his  own  initiative,  without 
consultation  or  even  warning,  and  evidently 
expeded  the  Assembly  to  acquiesce  in  the  out- 
rage. For  the  firSt  and  only  time  in  his  life 
Rainy  had  to  fight  on  ground  not  of  his  own 
choosing.  There  was  no  help  for  it.  Defeat 
would  be  bad,  but  surrender  would  be  ruinous. 
He  moved  that  the  appeal  be  dismissed  simpliciter. 
The  speech  in  which  he  did  so  was  perfeft  in  its 
kind.  While  freely  granting  the  excellence  of 
Short  {alias  Sir  Henry)  he  exposed  many  subtle 
and   compelling  reasons   for  the   Assembly  to 

91 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

conclude  that  Codlin  {alias  Rainy)  was  the  friend. 
He  used,  in  fa6t,  every  art  and  persuasion  of  the 
Parliamentary  leader  who  seeks  to  win  a  majority 
that  he  cannot  command.  His  smooth  and 
Studied  words  did  not  conceal  the  faft  that  he 
was  Straining  every  nerve  to  avoid  defeat. 
Fathers  and  brethren  were  profoundly  thrilled. 
They  had  assembled  looking  for  lively  times, 
but  this  ecclesiastical  cock-fight  surpassed  the 
most  sensational  expedation.  The  excitement 
grew  until  the  Puckish  little  figure  who  sat  at 
the  Bar  was  forgotten  save  as  a  symbol,  the 
infuriating  abStra6Hon  over  which  the  conflift 
raged.  The  House  divided.  By  a  small  majority 
the  appeal  on  secundo  was  allowed.  Rainy's  bid 
for  a  vote  of  confidence  in  his  ability  to  deal 
with  the  Robertson  Smith  case  had  failed.  The 
defeated  leader  could  not  conceal  his  chagrin. 

When  the  Assembly  met  in  the  evening  to 
consider  the  remaining  appeals  the  anti-Smith 
party  were  glowing  with  confidence.  They 
reckoned  quite  juStly  that  having  won  on  secundo 
they  could  not  possibly  lose  on  tertio^  to  which 
the  same  considerations  applied  with  even  greater 
force.  Besides,  Rainy  had  had  his  quietus  :  he 
would  not  Stand  up  to  be  knocked  down  again. 
The  pannel  would  be  left  to  fight  his  own  battle 
with  what  help  he  could  get  from  a  few  halfling 
minister  lads  and  maybe  a  thrawn  elder  or  two. 
In  such  hybriStic  temper  did  orthodoxy  unloose 
all  its  rhetoric,  winding  up  with  a  blood-curdling 

92 


SMITH     O       AIBERDEEN 

Speech  in  which  Begg  warned  the  Assembly  that 
the  eyes  of  all  Scotland  were  upon  them  and 
that  the  righteous  were  trembling  for  the  Ark 
of  God.  Robertson  Smith  replied.  Save  for  a 
word  he  was  seen  to  scribble  on  the  back  of  an 
envelope  while  Begg  was  up,  he  spoke  without 
a  note.  His  vindication  was  complete.  Long 
before  he  had  finished  the  crashing  salvos  of 
applause  that  marked  the  close  of  one  brilliant 
period  after  another  told  the  reactionaries  that 
they  were  beaten,  and  when  Smith,  turning 
passionately  towards  Begg,  reminded  the  House 
that  one  man  only  is  recorded  as  having  trembled 
for  the  Ark  of  God — "  Eli,  an  unworthy  priest  " 
— the  defeat  became  a  rout.*  Fathers  and  brethren 
shivered  with  delight,  like  small  boys  who  see  the 
school  bully  getting  his  head  punched.  Presently 
they  poured  into  the  lobbies  openly  declaring 
their  admiration  of  Smith's  prowess  and  their 
anger  at  the  trickery  by  which  they  had  been 
duped  into  voting  against  him  at  the  morning 
session.  The  appeal  on  tertio  was  dismissed  by 
a  two  to  one  majority.  The  remaining  appeals 
were  incontinently  abandoned,  for  Smith  had 
Stampeded  the  Assembly  and  scattered  the  re- 
doubtable Highland  ho§t  like  chaff. 

Amid  the  general  hubbub  Rainy  remained 
unmoved,    surveying    the    scene    of    confused 

^  The  contemporary  newspaper  reports  give  "  Eli,  a  worldly 
ecclesiastic  ",  but  there  is  ground  for  suspefting  that  the  passage  was 
toned  down  for  publication.  I  have  used  one  of  the  several  versions 
that  are  current  orally. 

93 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

enthusiasm  with  a  keen  and  calculating  eye.  Sir 
Henry's  usurpation  of  the  leadership  had  been  a 
disastrous  fiasco,  and  there  was  now  a  good  chance 
for  the  rightful  leader  to  regain  some  measure  of 
control.  He  moved,  therefore,  that  considera- 
tion of  the  "  tendency  "  count  be  deferred  to 
next  Assembly,  subjed  to  an  order  for  its  amend- 
ment in  a  form  prescribed  by  him.  A  wearied 
Assembly  agreed  without  discussion.  The  hypo- 
thetical count  was  to  charge  Smith  with  the 
publication  of  writings  which  "  by  ill-considered 
and  unguarded  setting  forth  of  speculations  of 
a  critical  kind  tend  to  awaken  doubt,  especially 
in  the  case  of  Students,  of  the  divine  truth  and 
inspiration  of  any  of  the  books  of  Scripture  ". 
Obviously  this  was  not  a  charge  of  heresy  at  all, 
but  merely  a  complaint  that  Smith  was  not  a 
suitable  person  to  hold  a  chair,  and  none  knew 
that  better  than  Rainy.  It  was  a  pure  device 
whereby  the  Assembly  could  be  switched  off 
the  heresy  track  back  to  administrative  action. 
Smith  did  not  see  that.  In  the  flush  of  vidtory 
and  the  innocence  of  his  young  heart  he  imagined 
that  Rainy  and  MoncreifF  were  now  separated  by 
an  inexpiable  hatred  and  that  the  former  had  no 
option  but  to  march  as  the  submissive  ally  of  the 
triumphant  liberals.  The  delusion  was  shared 
by  his  comrades,  so  much  so  that  as  the  year 
wore  on  and  the  Assembly  of  1879  drew  near, 
James  Candlish,  mildeSt  of  men,  felt  bold  enough 
to  send  Rainy  a  kind  but  firm  ultimatum.     He 

94 


SMITH     O      AIBERDEEN 

represented  that  Rainy  mu§t,  in  view  of  his 
recorded  dissent,  agree  that  the  matter  of  secundo 
should  be  reopened  and  the  Assembly  given  an 
opportunity  of  quashing  the  whole  libel.  If,  for 
lack  of  due  guidance,  the  Assembly  should  fail 
to  do  so  and  should  pass  even  an  implied  con- 
demnation of  the  Higher  Criticism,  then  the 
liberals,  who  were  numerous  and  influential, 
would  be  in  an  untenable  position  and  would  be 
driven  out  of  the  Church.  Whereat  Rainy,  in 
delicate  mockery,  asked  what  Candlish  meant  by 
addressing  him.  "  In  this  matter  ",  he  wrote, 
**  I  am  emphatically  not  the  leader  of  the  Free 
Church.  Sir  Henry  Moncreiff  holds  that  posi- 
tion." As  to  secundo,  that  was  res  judicata,  however 
deplorable,  and  could  not  be  reopened.  But  he 
was  quite  sensible  how  disastrous  it  would  be  if 
the  Free  Church,  for  want  of  guidance,  should 
commit  itself  to  a  condemnation  of  liberal 
theology ;  that  had  been  his  view  all  along. 
Therefore  it  would  be  for  the  liberals  to  consider 
whether  for  the  sake  of  the  cause  they  had  at 
heart  and  for  the  peace  of  the  Church  they  should 
not  consent  to  sacrifice  Robertson  Smith.  True, 
the  removal  of  Robertson  Smith  from  his  chair 
would  not  satisfy  the  extreme  readionaries,  but 
it  would  deprive  them  of  all  power  for  mischief. 
Otherwise  the  heresy  process,  with  all  its  risks, 
mu5t  take  its  course. 

It  was  clear  from  this  that  Rainy  was  working 
for  a  reconStitution  of  the  official  front.    His 

93 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

proposal  was  indignantly  rejected  —  he  could 
hardly  have  expefted  anything  else  —  but  it 
dashed  the  enthusiasm  of  his  young  liberal 
friends  to  find  that  in  trying  to  diftate  to  Rainy 
they  had  played  into  his  hands  as  beautifully  as 
he  could  desire. 

None  the  less  Robertson  Smith  faced  the 
Assembly  of  1879  in  the  highest  spirits.  He  had 
juft  returned  from  a  long  joyous  holiday  in 
Egypt  and  Syria  to  find  that  in  his  absence  his 
fellow-citizens  of  Aberdeen  had  elefted  him  a 
member  of  the  School  Board  by  a  majority  that 
Staggered  Dr.  Brown  and  the  other  "  old  gentle- 
men "  who  had  moved  heaven  and  earth  to 
keep  him  out.  Even  before  he  left  the  tide  of 
popular  feeling  had  been  racing  furiously  in  his 
favour.  His  appearance  on  any  public  platform 
was  the  signal  for  frantic  cheering.  Whenever 
the  di^tradted  Free  Presbytery  met  to  consider 
how  to  carry  out  the  in^trudions  of  the  General 
Assembly,  the  galleries  of  their  hall  were  invaded 
by  a  mob  of  students  and  the  general  public  who 
demonstrated  noisily  on  every  occasion,  cheering 
the  accused,  hissing  the  accusers  and  deriding 
the  pathetic  appeals  of  the  Moderator  for  order 
and  seemliness  —  reprehensible  behaviour,  no 
doubt,  but  very  heartening.  A  less  intoxicating 
and  more  respeftable  satisfaftion  was  afforded 
by  the  decisions  which  the  Presbytery  reached 
in  these  trying  circumstances.  The  amended 
"  tendency  "  charge  was  eviscerated  juSt  as  the 

96 


SMITH     O       AIBERDEEN 

**  contradidtion  '*  had  been  by  all  the  particular 
allegations  being  struck  out.  As  to  the  wretched 
secundo,  tossed  to  and  fro  like  the  grinning  sailor  in 
Ingoldsby^  the  Presbytery  after  hours  of  wrangling 
over  Sir  Henry's  precious  addendum  gave  it  up 
as  a  bad  job  and  sent  it  back  to  the  General 
Assembly  with  a  polite  request  that  the  Venerable 
Court  might  please  to  be  intelligible. 

The  position  was  now  really  farcical.  Three 
years  had  elapsed  since  Robertson  Smith  had 
begun  to  vex  certain  of  the  Church.  Two  years 
had  elapsed  since  he  had  invited  them  to  indidt 
him  for  heresy — ^two  years  spent  in  confused 
intrigue,  miscellaneous  backbiting  and  general 
bad  temper,  at  the  end  of  which  the  prosped  of 
bringing  the  culprit  to  book  was  farther  off  than 
ever.  The  futility  of  it  all  was  a  powerful 
argument  for  the  proposal  which  Rainy  now 
submitted,  that  the  Assembly  should  abandon 
the  heresy  proceedings  and  appoint  a  special 
committee  to  inquire  into  the  whole  matter. 
But  "  the  old  gentlemen  ",  as  Smith  with  the 
blithe  arrogance  of  youth  called  his  enemies, 
were  not  yet  in  a  mood  to  yield.  After  much 
manoeuvring  and  consultation  it  was  decided 
that  the  appeals  on  the  "  tendency "  charge 
offered  no  hope  to  fainting  orthodoxy.  They 
muft  concentrate  on  secundo  for  what  it  was  worth. 
In  virtue  of  the  faith  by  which  mountains  may 
be  removed  it  might  be  possible  to  convince  the 
Assembly  that  the  Galilean  Carpenter  attached 

97  H 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

great  importance  to  the  Mosaic  authorship  of 
the  book  of  the  Law  discovered  by  Hilkiah. 
Andrew  Bonar,  the  previous  year's  Moderator, 
was  chosen  as  the  moSt  suitable  vessel  to  convey 
this  dodrine  (Sir  Henry  Moncreiff  being  un- 
willing to  expose  himself  personally  to  a  second 
rebuff),  and  he  was  so  far  successful  that  in  a 
House  of  over  600  members  he  carried  his  point 
by  a  single  vote. 

A  result  so  even  of  course  produced  a  crisis, 
but  Rainy  was  not  dismayed.  Crises  were  his 
metier.  With  profound  satisfaftion  he  noted 
that  the  MoncreiiF-Begg  coalition  was  doomed. 
Poor  Sir  Henry  had  completely  lo§t  his  head, 
was  talking  wildly  and  doing  one  Stupid  thing 
after  another.  Presently  he  would  see  how 
foolish  he  had  been.  Robertson  Smith  had 
already  proved  himself  the  better  lawyer,  and 
his  ingenuity  was  by  no  means  exhausted.  He 
had  the  Presbytery  of  Aberdeen  under  his  thumb. 
There  would  be  a  new  sheaf  of  dilatory  pleas 
and  maddening  technicalities  got  ready  for  the 
next  Assembly,  on  realising  which  the  prodigal 
Clerk  would  humbly  return,  and  doubtless  the 
slaughter  of  the  fatted  calf — Robertson  Smith, 
to  wit — could  be  arranged. 

The  subjeft  of  these  calculations  now  began 
to  realise  the  danger.  So  long  as  Rainy  held  his 
hand  he  was  safe,  but  he  knew  that  Rainy  would 
not  hold  his  hand  for  ever.  It  was  only  a  question 
of  the  opportune  moment  for  Striking.     In  the 

98 


SMITH     O       AIBERDEEN 

circumstances,  Robertson  Smith  had  to  consider 
whether  it  was  worth  while  continuing  a  Struggle 
that  was  wearing  out  his  health  and  could  at  moSt 
only  postpone  the  inevitable  end.  He  was  fight- 
ing now  not  for  his  own  position,  but  for  the 
sake  of  his  friends — Candlish,  Davidson  and 
Lindsay — ^who,  it  was  well  known,  would  be  the 
next  to  suffer,  but  it  was  doubtful  if  he  could 
serve  them  further.  There  was  a  great  deal  to 
be  said  for  quitting  the  arena  if  any  honourable 
occasion  for  doing  so  should  arise.  At  this 
jundhire  the  chair  of  mathematics  at  Glasgow 
University  fell  vacant.  Smith  after  some  hesita- 
tion became  a  candidate,  but,  not  having  the 
support  of  Kelvin,  he  was  unsuccessful — on  the 
whole  to  his  relief.  Thenceforward,  though  he 
had  several  tempting  offers  (including  two  from 
Harvard)  he  never  wavered  in  his  resolve  not  to 
go  out  until  he  was  put  out. 

He  spent  the  winter  (1879-80)  in  the  EaSt, 
exchanging  his  black  coat  for  a  burnous,  and 
forgetting  Robertson  Smith  of  Aberdeen  in 
Abdullah  Effendi  of  Jeddah.  The  Emir  of  the 
Hejaz  was  his  good  friend  and  enabled  him  to 
make  a  rather  daring  journey  to  Taif.  From 
Arabia  he  went  back  to  Egypt  to  join  Richard 
Burton  for  an  expedition  to  Fayum  and  the 
Nitrian  Lakes.  A  droll  couple  they  muSt  have 
made — the  gigantic  swashbuckling  soldier  and  the 
little  minister  from  Aberdeen  who,  if  the  drago- 
man is  to  be  believed,  spoke  the  better  Arabic. 

99 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

The  pleasant  days  in  the  desert  came  to  an 
end.  In  the  spring  of  1880  Robertson  Smith 
was  once  more  under  the  bitter  Scottish  sky. 
During  his  absence  Rainy's  plans  had  matured. 
With  the  diligent  Dr.  Adam  as  his  go-between 
he  had  come  to  an  accommodation  with  Sir 
Henry  MoncreifF.  He  put  its  basis  very  simply 
and  cynically.  "  If  we  sacrifice  the  man  ",  he 
said,  "  they  trm§t  sacrifice  the  libel."  The 
reverend  baronet  was  sad  but  resigned,  for  he 
saw  no  help  for  it.  The  Presbytery  of  Aberdeen 
had  again  proved  recalcitrant.  The  heresy  trial 
looked  like  going  on  until  Judgment  Day. 
Rainy  had  been  right  after  all ;  the  only  way  to 
get  rid  of  Robertson  Smith  was  by  administrative 
a6Hon.  And  so  the  deal  was  concluded.  Mon- 
criefF  was  to  remain  in  titular  charge  of  the  case 
but  he  was  to  carry  out  Rainy*s  policy.  If  Begg 
would  signify  his  agreement,  the  business  was 
as  good  as  done.  If  not,  they  could  probably 
do  without  him,  as  the  moral  efFe6t  of  the  leaders' 
rapprochement)  would  go  far  towards  securing  a 
comfortable  majority  in  the  Assembly.  Against 
such  a  move  Smith  could  do  nothing  but  appeal 
to  the  public  conscience.  This  he  did  and  very 
effeftively,  as  the  fresh  burSt  of  pamphleteering 
proved — by  means  of  an  open  letter  in  which  he 
charged  Rainy  with  meditating  a  violation  of  the 
law,  civil  as  well  as  ecclesiastical.  But  Rainy 
did  not  care.  From  his  own  observation  he 
was  satisfied  that  Edinburgh  would  support  him, 

100 


SMITH     O      AIBERDEEN 

and  Dr.  Adam  had  assured  him  that  Glasgow 
was  pretty  safe.  Therefore  to  Smith's  open 
letter  he  sent  an  exquisitely  phrased  private  reply, 
full  of  courtesy  and  good  feeling,  that  coxild  not 
have  been  bettered  by  any  mo§t  humane  Mikado 
who  had  determined  on  something  lingering 
with  boiling  oil  in  it. 

When  the  Assembly  of  1880  met  the  Rainy- 
MoncreifF  accord  was  officially  declared  by  the 
agenda.  By  way  of  saving  Sir  Henry's  face 
the  Venerable  Court  was  to  be  invited  to  find 
the  libel  against  Professor  Robertson  Smith  "  ripe 
for  probation  ",  but  the  ripe  fruit,  being  of  the 
Dead  Sea  variety,  was  not  to  be  plucked.  Instead 
of  inStrufting  the  Presbytery  of  Aberdeen  to 
proceed  according  to  law,  the  Assembly  was  to 
summon  Robertson  Smith  to  the  Bar  and  con- 
sider what  was  to  be  done  with  him.  If  that 
were  carried — ^which  it  was,  the  Assembly  being 
anxious  to  get  to  an  issue — Sir  Henry  was  to 
propose  that  the  Rev.  William  Robertson  Smith, 
having  forfeited  the  confidence  of  the  Church, 
be  deprived  of  his  office  of  Professor  of  Hebrew 
and  Oriental  Languages. 

The  §tage  was  now  set  for  what  in  the  language 
of  the  evening  press  are  called  the  "  closing 
scenes  ".  There  was  every  promise  of  an  exciting 
finish.  For  one  thing,  it  was  known  that  Begg, 
idem  infensus,  had  refused  to  follow  Sir  Henry  and 
would  insist  upon  the  libel,  the  whole  libel  and 
nothing  but  the  libel.     For  another,  Robertson 

lOI 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

Smith  was  showing  signs  of  strain  and  had  sig- 
nalised the  opening  sessions  of  the  Assembly 
by  a  savage  onslaught  on  Sir  Henry  Moncreiff, 
who  had  borne  it  like  the  Chri^ian  gentleman 
he  was,  being  aware  that  he  richly  deserved  it, 
for  had  he  not  committed  the  gross  impropriety 
of  publishing  a  pamphlet  entitled  The  Hifiory 
of  the  Robertson  Smith  Case^  the  only  purpose 
of  which  could  be  to  prejudice  the  accused  ? 

The  motion  for  Smith's  deprivation  was  set 
down  for  Thursday,  May  27.  Shortly  after  six 
that  morning  there  was  an  unwonted  a6tivity  in 
the  thoroughfares  leading  from  the  New  Town 
up  the  Mound  to  the  Assembly  Hall.  Students, 
who  in  those  days  were  little  plagued  by  the 
razor,  were  early  on  the  spot,  yet  found  them- 
selves anticipated  by  a  sedate  procession  of  four- 
wheelers  bearing  elders'  wives  and  daughters, 
complete  with  summer  princess  frocks  and  Leg- 
horn bonnets,  who  had  gallantly  sacrificed  bed 
and  breakfast  to  make  sure  of  cheering  Mr. 
Robertson  Smith  as  their  great -grandmothers 
had  cheered  the  Young  Chevalier,  a  little  further 
down  the  same  hill.  Long  before  10  o'clock,  the 
Assembly  Hall,  floor  and  gallery,  was  densely 
crowded.  The  appearance  of  the  pannel  at  the 
Bar    was    greeted    with    tumultuous    cheering. 

*  Had  it  not  been  for  the  author's  position  Smith  might  safely 
have  ignored  the  pamphlet,  for  it  is  so  tedious  and  pedantic  as  to 
be  wellnigh  unintelligible.  It  displays  great  learning  in  ecclesi- 
astical law,  Anglican  as  well  as  Presbyterian  precedents  being  discussed 
exhaustively,  but  no  appreciable  sense. 

102 


SMITH     O      AIBERDEEN 

Begg,  making  his  way  to  his  usual  seat  on  the 
"  opposition  "  side,  bore  good-naturedly  enough 
a  chorus  of  laughter  and  facetious  noises  contri- 
buted by  young  gentlemen  who  were  pursuing 
theological  studies.  When  Rainy  entered  there 
were  hisses. 

The  fir§t  incident  was  provided  by  Smith,  who 
objeded  to  the  Assembly's  procedure  as  grossly 
irregular,  refused  to  plead  and  walked  out  of 
the  House.  This  was  awkward,  but  there  was 
no  help  for  it.  With  a  wry  face  Sir  Henry 
MoncreifF  moved  that  Mr.  Robertson  Smith  be 
deprived  of  his  professorship.  Dr.  Laidlaw,  a 
member  of  the  pro-Smith  party,  moved  what 
amounted  to  a  direft  negative.  The  debate  was 
in  the  doldrums  until  Begg  got  up.  Begg  was 
astonished.  Begg  was  grieved.  Begg  was  in- 
dignant. What,  sentence  a  man  without  trying 
him !  Words  could  not  express  the  infamy  of 
it.  Would  the  Assembly  of  the  Free  Church 
betray  the  principles  for  which  Hampden  had 
died  ?  Perish  the  thought.  .  .  .  And  so  on,  and 
so  on.  Derisive  burets  of  applause  from  the 
divinity  Students  in  the  gallery  punduated  Begg's 
impassioned  appeal  for  justice — a  shameless 
performance  that  made  Rainy  and  MoncreifF 
thoroughly  miserable,  which  was  its  main  purpose. 
Lastly,  there  was  a  motion  in  the  name  of  the 
doyen  of  the  Assembly,  Dr.  Beith,^  who  proposed 
that  the  Assembly  should  admonish  Professor 

^  Great-grandfather  of  Major  Hay  Beith  (Ian  Hay). 
103 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

Robertson  Smith  to  beware  of  publishing  "  un- 
guarded and  incomplete  statements  "  and  let  the 
matter  re§t  there.  Dr.  Beith's  great  age,  the 
esteem  in  which  he  was  held  by  all,  and  the  fad 
that  having  been  identified  at  fir§t  with  the 
orthodox  party  he  had  revised  his  opinions  in 
no  uncertain  fashion,  ensured  that  his  motion 
would  command  a  large  measure  of  support, 
and  the  pro- Smith  party  decided  to  concentrate 
upon  it.  The  old  man  was  so  infirm  that  he 
could  not  appear,  but  by  leave  of  the  House  the 
speech  he  had  prepared  was  read  by  his  son,  Mr. 
Gilbert  Beith,  M.P.  It  was  a  mild,  grave  speech, 
without  a  hard  word  in  it,  but  as  a  condemnation 
of  Rainy *s  doctrine  of  expediency  and  "  the  peace 
of  the  Church  "  it  was  unanswerable.  Begg's 
vigorous,  if  dishonest,  inveftive  had  made  the 
official  clique  look  ridiculous.  Dr.  Beith's 
censure  exhibited  them  as  paltry  shufflers.  It 
became  clear  that  though  the  Rainy-Moncreiff 
motion  might  get  votes  it  had  no  friends. 

The  debate  dragged  on  all  day  and  far  into 
the  night.  Pa§t  midnight  a  wearied  Moderator, 
whose  lace  ruffles  had  long  since  lo§t  their 
morning  freshness,  rose  to  put  the  question.  As 
there  were  four  motions  three  divisions  were 
necessary.  Dr.  Beith*s  motion  was  carried  fir§t 
against  Dr.  Begg's  and  then  against  Dr.  Laidlaw's. 
Lastly,  it  was  put  against  the  official  motion  for 
Dr.  Robertson  Smith's  deprivation,  and  the  real 
Struggle  began. 

104 


"smith    o*    aiberdeen** 

The  result,  as  it  happened,  was  determined 
largely  by  the  manner  in  which  divisions  are 
taken  in  the  Scottish  General  Assemblies,  which 
is  the  opposite  of  the  Parliamentary  method — 
that  is,  members  are  counted  as  they  pass  out 
of  the  House  into  the  lobbies.  Hence  it  often 
happens  that  cautious  members  hang  back  until 
they  see  how  the  division  is  going  before  deciding 
how  they  will  vote  or  whether  they  will  vote  at 
all.  It  is  a  system  admirably  contrived  to  falsify 
the  sense  of  the  House  and  to  suit  the  convenience 
of  fadion  leaders.  Dr.  Begg  took  full  advantage 
of  it.  Officially  he  and  his  party  could  take  no 
part  in  the  final  division,  as  they  were  opposed 
on  principle  to  both  motions.  But  on  one  thing 
they  were  resolved — ^Robertson  Smith  mu§t  go, 
if  not  by  their  way  then  by  Rainy's  way.  So 
presently  Begg  left  his  seat  and  ascended  the 
railed-in  dais  on  which  Stood  the  Clerks'  table, 
whence  he  could  take  Stock  of  the  situation. 
From  time  to  time  he  signalled  to  members  of 
his  party  to  go  into  the  lobby  for  the  official 
motion.  At  length  he  returned  to  his  place. 
The  pro-Smith  party  were  all  in  the  lobby,  but 
the  supporters  of  Rainy  and  MoncreifF  were 
Still  crowding  through  their  door.  Begg  and 
Kennedy  chatted  affably.  The  gallery  in  deep 
dejeftion  watched  the  tellers  checking  their 
figures  at  the  table  and  wondered  what  the 
majority  would  be.  Suddenly,  in  full  view 
of   the   scandalised   Sir  Henry  MoncreifF,   one 

105 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

of    the   tellers    for   the    Beith    motion   waved 
his  hat.  .  .  . 

It  was  a  Strange  gu§t  of  passion  that  swept 
over  the  Mound  that  summer  night.  Packed 
into  the  sombre  low-roofed  Assembly  Hall  were 
some  two  thousand  of  the  §taide§l  and  mo§t 
convention-ridden  human  beings  it  would  have 
been  possible  to  find  in  Viftorian  Britain,  who 
had  been  listening  for  fourteen  hours  to  a  debate 
on  the  questioned  historicity  of  Deuteronomy, 
and  when  they  learned  that  Deuteronomy  had 
been  beaten  they  went  mad.  From  the  gallery 
came  every  kind  of  din  of  which  frenzied  men 
and  women  are  capable  —  cheering,  shrieking, 
even  sobbing  with  delight.  On  the  floor  the 
fathers  and  brethren  of  the  viftorious  faftion 
literally  danced  for  joy,  wrung  one  another's 
hands  and  yelled  themselves  hoarse,  while 
orthodoxy  and  expediency  sat  in  tragic  bewilder- 
ment. 

When  at  length  the  figures  were  read  out  and 
it  was  found  that  Dr.  Beith's  motion  had  been 
carried  by  seven  votes  only,  bewilderment  gave 
place  to  rage,  and  if  the  unspoken  thoughts  of 
his  friends  could  have  killed,  Begg  would  have 
been  a  dead  man.  What  had  happened  was 
patent  to  all.  Begg  had  been  misled  by  the 
delay  of  the  supporters  of  the  Rainy-Moncreiff 
motion  in  getting  into  the  lobby — a  circumstance 
that  was  not  due  to  superiority  of  numbers,  as 
he  supposed,  but  to  the  fa6t  that  they  were  older, 

106 


"smith    o'    aiberdeen" 

fatter  and  differ  than  the  liberals — ^and  he  had 
been  too  niggardly  in  doling  out  his  unofficial 
support.  His  clumsy  attempt  at  hedging  had 
resulted  in  a  decision  that  did  not  in  fad  represent 
the  sense  of  the  House.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
liberals  were  entitled  to  make  the  mo§t  of  their 
viftory.  They  could  fairly  claim  that,  though 
slightly  in  a  minority  in  the  Assembly,  they  repre- 
sented a  majority  of  the  membership  of  the 
Church.  Amid  renewed  plaudits  Smith  appeared 
at  the  Bar  to  receive  the  mild  admonition  pre- 
scribed by  Dr.  Beith's  motion.  He  accepted  it 
gracefully,  but  not  without  a  touch  of  irony  in 
the  contrition  he  expressed  for  "  statements  so 
incomplete  that  even  at  the  end  of  three  years 
the  opinion  of  this  House  has  been  so  divided 
upon  them  ". 

IV 

For  the  brief  space  of  three  weeks  Robertson 
Smith  enjoyed  the  perilous  bliss  of  having  seen 
his  enemies  brought  to  confusion.  Rainy  had 
been  humbled  to  the  du§t.  Sir  Henry  Moncreiff's 
reputation  as  an  ecclesiastical  lawyer  was  in 
tatters.  The  terrible  Begg  had  dwindled  into 
a  pig-headed  old  bungler.  But  the  vidor  was 
not  permitted  to  fall  into  the  sin  of  v^pi^.  While 
he  was  Still  receiving  congratulations  from  Well- 
hausen,  Cheyne  and  others,  there  happened  what 
Begg  exultingly  hailed  as  "  a  marvellous  inter- 
position of  Providence  ".    A  new  volume  of  the 

107 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

Encjclopadia  Britannica  appeared  in  which  the 
familiar  initials  "  W.  R.  S. "  were  appended  to  an 
article  on  "  Hebrew  Language  and  Literature  " 
that  was  even  more  "  unguarded  "  in  its  State- 
ments than  the  article  on  "  Bible  ".  Had  the 
volume  appeared,  as  intended,  in  the  early  spring, 
all  would  probably  have  been  well.  The  fury 
of  the  orthodox  was  then  burning  so  fiercely 
that  a  little  extra  fuel  could  have  made  no  material 
diiference.  But  unfortunately  Kelvin,  who  was 
writing  the  article  on  "  Heat ",  was  dilatory  and 
publication  had  been  held  up.  The  result  was 
that  Robertson  Smith  was  put  in  a  very  awkward 
position.  He  had  accepted  the  Assembly's  ad- 
monition and  had  given  an  undertaking  to  walk 
more  delicately  in  future,  yet,  within  a  month, 
here  he  was  offending  in  the  eye  of  all  the  world 
more  grossly  than  ever.  It  was  now  made 
possible  to  denounce  him,  not  simply  as  a  heretic 
but  as  a  man  without  honour,  and  his  enemies 
did  not  fail  to  exploit  this  unexpefted  advantage. 
On  the  motion  of  Sir  Henry  Moncreiff  (who  said 
he  had  not  read  the  article  and  did  not  intend  to 
read  it,  being  well  assured  of  its  damnable  quality) 
the  Presbytery  of  Edinburgh  decided  to  request 
the  College  Committee  to  take  immediate  aftion. 
Robertson  Smith  was  in  London  at  the  time, 
attending  a  meeting  of  the  Old  Testament 
Revision  Committee.  Innocent  as  ever,  he  would 
hardly  believe  his  friends  when  they  wrote  to 
him  that  the  trouble  had  broken  out  afresh.     He 

io8 


SMITH     O 

prote^ed  that  he  had  scrupulously  observed  his 
undertaking  even  to  the  extent  of  refusing  to 
write  the  articles  "  Isaiah  "  and  "  Israel  " — a 
sacrifice  surely  sub^antial  enough  to  warrant  his 
good  faith.  Was  it  not  obvious  that  the  article 
now  complained  of  had  been  written  many 
months  before  and  was  already  through  the  press 
before  the  Assembly  met  ?  To  this  came  the 
awkward  rejoinder,  why  had  he  kept  silence 
about  it  ?  Knowing  the  State  of  feeling  in  the 
Church,  was  it  not  his  plain  duty  to  disclose  all 
the  fadts  ?  Smith's  answer  was  that  it  simply 
had  not  occurred  to  him — ^which,  like  many  an 
honest  answer  given  in  the  witness-box,  was  not 
convincing. 

The  laS  phase  of  the  Robertson  Smith  case 
was  short  and  ugly.  The  allegation  of  broken 
faith,  flimsy  and  false  as  it  was  to  the  knowledge 
of  those  who  used  it,  served  as  a  screen  behind 
which  every  abomination  of  policy,  cunning, 
malice  and  untruth  could  be,  and  were,  wrought 
with  impunity  ad  majorem  Dei  gloriam.  Certain 
of  the  manifestations  were  peculiarly  vile.  One 
Macaulay,  the  "  popular  "  preacher  who  had  dis- 
tinguished himself  in  the  early  Stages  of  the 
controversy,  tabled  a  mysterious  demand  that 
the  Presbytery  of  Edinburgh  should  sit  in  camera 
to  discuss  a  matter  of  grave  import  that  was 
unfit  for  publication.  This  turned  out  to  be  a 
Study  of  Semitic  totemism,  with  special  reference 
to  the  Old  Testament,  which  Smith  had  contri- 

109 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

buted  to  the  Journal  of  Philology  and  which  §till 
ranks  high  in  the  Hterature  of  anthropology. 
Not  being  disposed  to  spoil  a  good  case  by  making 
themselves  ridiculous,  the  Presbytery  did  not 
warm  to  Mr.  Macaulay's  indignation,  and  the 
matter  dropped ;  but  the  incident  was  typical 
of  the  temper  in  which  the  second  attack  on 
Robertson  Smith  was  conduced.  It  was  no 
longer  a  question  of  condemning  a  heresy  and 
beating  the  bounds  of  orthodoxy.  It  was  the 
§tri6Hy  practical  business  of  hewing  Agag  to 
pieces  before  the  Lord  and  making  as  fine  a 
minced  collop  of  him  as  was  humanly  possible 
— that  is  to  say,  very  fine  indeed.  Principle, 
honesty,  common  decency  might  go  hang,  pro- 
vided Robertson  Smith  was  turned  out  of  his 
place.  Even  Begg  was  of  opinion  that  the  forms 
of  law  had  become  intolerable,  and  Kennedy  of 
Dingwall  preached  lynch  law  without  disguise 
or  shame.  Highland  presbyteries,  inflamed  by 
propaganda  direfted  and  financed  from  Edin- 
burgh, showered  angry  "  overtures  "  upon  the 
Commission  of  Assembly,  demanding  instant  and 
drastic  aftion.  Prejudice  was  organised  on  the 
grandest  scale.  No  insinuation  however  mean, 
no  He  however  flagrant,  was  deemed  unworthy 
in  the  service  of  the  good  cause.  "  What  God 
hath  cleansed  that  call  thou  not  common."  The 
favourite  device — ^which  had  been  invented  by 
the  ingenious  Macaulay  at  an  early  Sage  of  the 
case — ^was  to  portray  the  offender  as  a  worthless 

no 


SMITH     O       AIBERDEEN 

fellow  whose  niling  passions  were  vanity  and  a 
hatred  of  the  Christian  religion,  and  whose  pre- 
tended learning  consisted  of  impudent  plagiarisms 
from  Kuenen.  The  fad:  that  Kuenen  himself 
had  already  made  an  indignant  protect  against 
the  misuse  of  his  name  in  no  way  abashed  the 
defenders  of  the  faith.  The  lie  was  simply 
repeated  and  amplified.  It  should  have  been  the 
duty  of  the  titular  leader  of  the  Church  to  censure 
these  calumnies,  but  Rainy  at  this  jundhire  heard 
nothing,  saw  nothing  and  said  nothing.  The 
Church  had  preferred  fadion  to  leadership. 
Well,  let  them  have  their  fill  of  it.  In  God's 
good  time  he  would  be  called  in  to  clear  up  the 
mess.  Meanwhile  matters  mu§t  take  their  course. 
And  so  when  the  August  Commission  appointed 
a  packed  committee  to  examine  and  report  upon 
Robertson  Smith's  latent  article,  he  merely  raised 
his  eyebrows,  expressed  a  chilly  doubt  or  two 
and  set  sail  for  America,  where  he  had  an  urgent 
and  opportune  engagement.  He  was  Still  in 
America  when  the  October  Commission  received 
the  committee's  report  and  took  infatuated  action. 
The  General  Assembly  of  1880  had  been 
pretty  evenly  divided  in  opinion.  An  accident 
had  gained  a  small  majority  for  Robertson  Smith. 
The  Commission  of  Assembly,  which  theoretic- 
ally consifted  of  the  same  persons,  was  bitterly 
hostile  and  Steadily  registered  large  majorities  for 
Strict  orthodoxy.  The  change  of  attitude  is  easily 
explained.     The    pro -Smith    majority    at    the 

III 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

Assembly  had  included  a  certain  proportion  of 
weaker  brethren  whose  quaking  legs  had  carried 
them  with  difficulty  into  the  liberal  lobby  and 
who  now  were  only  too  eager  to  show  their 
penitence.  Furthermore,  the  Begg  party,  realis- 
ing the  futility  of  taftics,  were  now  pulling  their 
full  weight.  Lastly,  the  attendance  at  a  Com- 
mission of  Assembly  is  for  obvious  reasons  apt 
to  be  imrepresentative.  Country  members  can- 
not aifford  the  expense  of  time  and  money  involved, 
with  the  result  that  the  Commission  rarely  refledts 
anything  but  the  opinion  of  Edinburgh.  As 
Edinburgh  had  definitely  aligned  itself  with  the 
orthodox  party,  and  as  money  was  available  to 
secure  the  aid  of  Highland  presbyters  who  were 
zealous  to  defend  the  Ark  of  God  provided  their 
expenses  were  paid,  the  attitude  of  the  Commis- 
sion was  a  foregone  conclusion.  Robertson 
Smith  was  summarily  suspended  from  teaching, 
and  his  case  was  reported  to  the  next  General 
Assembly  for  final  judgment.  It  is  interesting  at 
this  time  of  day  to  note  the  finding  of  the  special 
committee  upon  which  this  interlocutory  sentence 
was  passed,  to  wit :  "  The  general  method  on 
which  the  author  proceeds  conveys  the  impression 
that  the  Bible  may  be  accounted  for  by  the  same 
laws  which  have  determined  the  growth  of  any 
other  literature  ".  But  the  terms  of  the  indictment 
were  immaterial  to  a  court  that  had  already  made 
up  its  mind.  The  Commission's  competence  to 
ad  as  a  court  of  firSt  instance  was  more  than 

112 


SMITH     O      AIBERDEEN 

doubtful,  but  the  warnings  of  the  legal  members 
were  unheeded.  Constitutional  forms  having  so 
far  favoured  the  accused  were  now  ignored. 
The  Free  Church  of  Scotland  reverted  to  the 
judicial  standards  of  the  sixteenth  century.  "  Show 
me  the  man  ",  said  a  Scots  judge  of  that  date, 
"  and  ril  show  you  the  law,"  and  the  maxim 
was  unblushingly  applied  to  Robertson  Smith. 
The  committee's  report,  which  was  in  effed  an 
indiftment,  was  concealed  from  him  until  he  was 
summoned  to  the  bar  to  plead  to  it.  His  plea  of 
autrefois  acquit  was  greeted  with  an  angry  uproar, 
and  sentence  of  suspension  was  passed  forthwith, 
pending  final  judgment  by  the  next  General 
Assembly. 

Rainy  returned  from  America  to  find  the  Free 
Church  in  pandemonium.  Robertson  Smith, 
though  inhibited  from  teaching,  was  Still  free  to 
preach,  and  he  exploited  his  liberty  to  the  full. 
There  were  plenty  of  pulpits  at  his  disposal,  and 
wherever  he  went  he  had  crowded  and  excited 
congregations.  He  popularised  the  Higher 
Criticism  to  enthusiaftic  Glasgow  audiences  in  a 
series  of  le<9:ures  on  "  The  Old  Testament  in  the 
Jewish  Church  ".  A  newspaper  and  pamphlet 
war  was  waged  in  which  intemperance  of  language 
was  not  confined  to  one  side.  Throughout  Scot- 
land no  presbytery  could  meet  without  a  violent 
scene  in  which  reverend  gentlemen  shook  fi§ts  at 
one  another  and  were  barely  restrained  from 
blows.     The    pro-Smith    party    challenged    the 

113  I 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

legality  of  the  Commission's  aftion.  The  anti- 
Smith  party  wavered  between  apology  and 
defiance.  Sir  Henry  MoncreifF  once  more  lo§t 
his  head  in  a  crisis  and  tried  to  argue  that  the 
Commission  had  not  purported  to  perform  a 
judicial  aft,  whereby  he  evacuated  a  bad  position 
to  take  up  a  worse.  On  the  other  hand  Begg 
and  Kennedy,  who  a  few  months  before  had  been 
all  for  the  §tri£left  legality,  were  now  shame- 
less advocates  of  lynch-law :  "In  dealing  with 
heretics  ",  they  said,  "  the  Church  mu§t  not  allow 
itself  to  be  hampered  by  red-tape".  Talk  of  this 
kind  produced  its  natural  reaftion.  The  laity 
took  alarm,  and,  especially  in  the  We§t,  rallied 
to  the  cause  of  Robertson  Smith  in  increasing 
numbers.  Poor  Dr.  Adam,  doing  his  pathetic 
be§t  to  maintain  some  show  of  an  official  front 
during  Rainy's  absence,  found  himself  faced  with 
a  revolt  of  influential  elders  ^  and  immediately 
flew  into  a  passion,  which  only  made  matters 
worse.  The  elders,  who  were  for  the  mo§t  part 
men  who  were  not  accustomed  to  take  anybody's 
orders,  told  Dr.  Adam  that  unless  he  wanted  to 
provoke  a  fir§t-class  anti-clerical  agitation,  he  had 
better  keep  a  civil  tongue  in  his  head.  Altogether 
the  situation  was  about  as  ugly  as  it  could  be. 
The  official  element  was  thoroughly  frightened. 
Even  the  Highlanders,  for  all  their  blunter,  were 
uneasy.     With  every  day  that  passed  the  feeling 

*  This  movement  was  led  by  Dr.  W.  G.  Blackie,  head  of  the  well- 
known  publishing  house. 

H4 


SMITH     O       AIBERDEEN 

grew  that  Rainy  had  better  be  asked  to  resume 
the  leadership  on  his  own  terms.  Overtures 
were  made  to  which  the  great  man  H^tened  with 
chilling  courtesy.  He  was  at  one  with  the 
brethren,  he  said,  that  Robertson  Smith  should 
be  turned  out,  and  would  loyally,  though  with 
the  deepest  regret,  co-operate  to  that  end,  but  he 
would  much  prefer  that  somebody  else  should 
lead  in  the  matter.  There  is  no  reason  to  suppose 
that  he  was  wholly  insincere.  He  was  cold, 
calculating  and  avid  of  power,  but  he  was  no 
hypocrite ;  for  hypocrisy  argues  a  vulgarity  of 
mind  of  which  Rainy  was  incapable.  He  knew 
that  this  time  Robertson  Smith's  doom  was  sealed, 
and  he  was  not  in  love  with  the  hangman's  job 
that  was  now  being  thrust  upon  him.  At  the 
same  time  the  restoration  of  his  primacy  with  an 
implied  assurance  that  never  again  would  it  be 
questioned  was  the  reward,  and  Rainy  was  not 
the  man  to  make  a  grand  refusal. 

And  so  at  the  Assembly  of  1881  the  Robertson 
Smith  case  was  brought  to  an  abrupt  and  scandal- 
ous end.  Rainy  assured  a  humble,  contrite  and 
obsequious  House  that  in  passing  the  resolutions 
for  Robertson  Smith's  deprivation  they  need  not 
be  troubled  by  the  question  of  legality,  inasmuch 
as  the  Venerable  Court  possessed  a  nobile  officium 
or  prerogative  jurisdiftion  in  virtue  of  which  a 
professor  appointed  ad  vitam  aut  culpam  could  be 
dismissed  without  any  finding  of  culpa.  This 
monstrous  dodrine  was  emphatically  disowned 

115 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

by  the  new  Procurator  of  the  Church,  Mr.  C.  J. 
Guthrie,^  who  warned  the  Assembly  that  it  was 
doing  an  illegal  thing.  The  warning  was  treated 
with  contempt — partly  because  Mr.  Guthrie  was 
notoriously  an  adherent  of  the  Smith  party,  but 
more  because  the  Assembly  well  knew  that 
Robertson  Smith  would  never  take  the  Church 
to  law.  The  illegal  resolutions  were  carried  by 
large  majorities.  There  was  one  feature  about 
them  of  a  meanness  that  is  almost  comical. 
Though  depriving  Smith  of  his  professorship 
they  purported  to  continue  his  "  emoluments  ". 
This  was  neither  justice  nor  generosity  but  a 
cautious  device  which  it  was  conceived  would 
proteft  the  Church  from  a  civil  a(9:ion  for  damages  I 
The  only  appropriate  answer  was  that  which 
Simon  Magus  had,  and  it  was  given. 

Nearly  all  the  re§t  of  Robertson  Smith's  life 
was  spent  at  Cambridge,  where  he  did  his  mo§t 
solid  and  lasting  work  in  pure  scholarship.  For 
some  eighteen  months  after  his  deprivation  he 
lived  in  Edinburgh  carrying  on  his  work  for  the 
'Encyclopedia  Britannica^  of  which  he  was  now 
editor-in-chief,  and  continuing  his  aftive  Church 
connexion  even  to  the  extent  of  sitting  in  the 
General  Assembly  as  a  representative  elder.  But 
he  was  no  longer  happy  in  Scotland  and  when, 
largely  through  the  good  offices  of  Henry  Sidg- 
wick  and  Leslie  Stephen,  he  was  offered  the  Lord 
Almoner's  Professorship  of  Arabic  at  Cambridge 

*  Afterwards  Lord  Guthrie,  a  judge  of  the  Court  of  Session. 

ii6 


SMITH     O      AIBERDEEN 

he  gladly  accepted.  Trinity  elected  him  a 
member  of  the  High  Table  and  gave  him  rooms, 
which  he  occupied  until  early  in  1885,  when  he 
was  eleded  a  fellow  of  Christ's.  In  the  follow- 
ing year  he  was  appointed  University  Librarian, 
a  position  for  which  he  was  rarely  gifted  and  to 
which  he  devoted  unremitting  labour.  In  1889 
he  was  promoted  to  be  Professor  of  Arabic  in 
succession  to  William  Wright.  The  same  year 
saw  the  publication  of  The  KeligioM  of  the  Semites, 
designed  as  part  of  a  greater  work  which  he  was 
never  to  complete.  For  in  1890  his  health  began 
to  fail,  and  as  time  went  on  he  was  found  to  be 
suffering  from  a  slow  but  fatal  internal  malady. 
He  died  at  Cambridge  on  March  24,  1894,  aged 
forty-seven. 

One  cannot  contemplate  the  career  of  Robert- 
son Smith  without  a  mixture  of  feelings  in 
which  admiration  for  what  he  achieved  con- 
tends with  anger  at  the  perverseness  of  his  fellow- 
countrymen  which  prevented  him  from  achieving 
more.  Out  of  all  his  too  short  life  five  precious 
years  were  consumed  in  fighting  the  wild  beasts 
of  reaftion,  stupidity  and  expediency — years  that 
by  right  should  have  been  spent  in  the  advance- 
ment of  the  Studies  to  which  he  was  devoted. 
"  Why  all  this  waste  ?  "  is  the  rueful  question. 
Possibly  the  answer  is  that  there  was  no  waSte. 
Had  he  been  left  in  peace  Smith  might  have  added 
much  more  than  he  aftually  did  to  the  volume 
of  pure  scholarship,  but  in  his  day  liberal  theology 

117 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

had  more  need  of  champions  than  of  devotees. 
Colenso  and  the  authors  of  Essays  and  Reviews 
had  won  notable  viftories,  but  they  had  had  to 
vindicate  themselves  by  the  law  of  the  land, 
which  the  ecclesiastics  had  loudly  complained 
was  not  playing  fair.  A  battle  had  yet  to  be 
fought  in  the  open,  without  recourse  to  law 
and  with  the  public  as  ultimate  judge.  It  was 
Robertson  Smith's  de^iny  to  fight  this  battle 
single-handed,  and  to  win.  His  expulsion  from 
his  chair,  so  far  from  being  a  defeat,  signalised 
the  completeness  of  his  viftory,  for  it  was  in 
terms  an  abandonment  by  his  adversaries  of 
their  main  objedive,  viz.  the  proscription  of 
liberal  theology  in  Presbyterian  Scotland.  It 
had  no  more  value  than  any  other  ad:  of  vindidive 
sabotage.  Of  Rainy's  part  in  it  enough,  perhaps, 
has  been  said.  He,  of  course,  was  not  in  the 
least  vindiftive :  his  Strongest  feeling  againSt 
Robertson  Smith  was  impatience.  The  worSt 
that  can  be  said  of  him  is  that  he  sinned  againSt 
the  light,  which  according  to  good  authority 
is  as  heavy  a  burden  as  any  man  can  be  called 
upon  to  bear.  He  certainly  secured  that  Begg, 
Kennedy  and  MoncreiiF  should  not  disturb  the 
peace  of  the  Church  during  the  very  few  years 
that  remained  to  them,  and  when  they  were  gone 
he  was  able  to  put  down  heresy  hunting  with  a 
more  or  less  firm  hand.  But  the  price  of  Rainy*s 
peace-making  was  a  loss  of  moral  from  which  the 
Free  Church  never  recovered.    The  more  cultured 

ii8 


SMITH     O       AIBERDEEN 

and  thoughtful  laymen,  who  had  seen  in  Robert- 
son Smith  the  fir^t  token  of  a  Church  of  Scotland 
Free  in  a  wider  and  nobler  sense  than  that  of  the 
Disruption,  never  forgave  the  Church,  and  in 
their  unforgiveness  there  was  inevitably  involved 
the  leader  who  directed  the  Church's  policy. 
They  did  not  secede — though  some  resigned 
their  elderships — but  they  ceased  to  be  interefted, 
and  their  deeper  allegiance  was  quietly  withdrawn, 
with  the  result  that  the  lay  representation  in  the 
councils  of  the  Church  soon  fell  into  less  worthy 
hands.  The  new  lay  magnates  were  men  of 
large  purses  and  small  minds,  who  had  all  been 
more  or  less  infefted  with  the  new  brand  of 
religiosity  that  had  been  brought  from  America 
by  Moody  and  Sankey,  and  whose  avowed  pur- 
pose was  to  convert  the  Free  Church  into  a 
permanent  evangelistic  mission.  To  the  liberal 
theologians  they  accorded  a  contemptuous  tolera- 
tion, for  as  praftical  men  they  refused  to  worry 
about  what  might  be  published  in  books  that 
nobody  could  be  supposed  to  read.  As  they  had 
the  same  contempt  for  confessional  Standards, 
formularies,  constitutions,  traditions  and  indeed 
everything  else,  the  account  was  squared.  The 
professors,  after  a  few  abortive  attacks,  were  left 
in  peace,^  and  in  fairness  to  the  Free  Church  (and 
its  successor  the  United  Free  Church)  it  muSt  be 

*  The  last  attack — it  was  a  demonstration  rather  than  a  genuine 
heresy  hunt  —  made  some  twenty-five  years  ago,  was  direfted 
against  the  present  Principal  of  Aberdeen  University,  Sir  George 
Adam  Smith,  then  Professor  of  Hebrew  at  the  Glasgow  U,F.  College. 

119 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

admitted  that  it  has  been  consistently  liberal  in 
its  college  appointments.  To-day  as  a  body  the 
ministry  of  the  United  Free  Church  is  probably 
the  most  scholarly  in  Great  Britain,  but  as  religious 
influence  it  is  curiously  inarticulate  and  impotent, 
and  for  that  the  blame  muSt  be  attributed  to 
Rainy's  fatal  decision  in  the  Robertson  Smith 
case.  It  had  the  effeft,  apparently  irretrievable 
as  it  was  unforeseen,  of  creating  a  divorce  between 
scholarship  and  religion  in  the  very  life-blood  of 
the  Church. 


116 


JOHN  STUART  BLACKIE 

The  police  inspector  was  very  polite.  He  had 
much  pleasure  in  returning  to  the  signore  tedesche 
their  passports,  and  they  might  re§t  assured  that 
the  Kingdom  of  Naples  was  honoured  by  their 
presence. 

The  three  German  ladies — a  mother  and  two 
daughters — smiled  an  uneasy  appreciation  of  the 
official  compliments.  There  was  a  suggestion 
of  unpleasantness  to  come.  Their  party  num- 
bered four,  but  only  three  passports  had  been 
returned.  The  inspeftor  took  the  fourth  from 
his  pocket,  glanced  at  it,  frowned,  put  it  back  in 
his  pocket  and  blew  out  his  che§t. 

"  But  the  signore  capitano  cannot  proceed,"  he 
announced. 

A  hurricane  of  protects  broke  out  in  which  a 
shrill  cackling  male  voice  rose  high  above  the 
melodious  German  accents  of  the  ladies,  and  far 
surpassed  them  in  fluency  of  inveftive.  It  de- 
claimed in  more  or  less  choice  Italian  against 
officials  and  tyrannies,  principalities  and  powers, 
and,  when  Italian  was  exhausted,  broke  out  afresh 
in  German,  quoted  Latin  and  occasionally  clinched 
matters  with  a  pithy  observation  in  the  broadest 

121 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

Aberdonian  and  a  great  guffaw.  The  ladies 
became  alarmed.  Their  indignation  at  the  police 
changed  to  tearful  depreciations  of  their  com- 
panion's vehemence.  He  was  only  doing  him- 
self harm.  He  was  asking  to  be  imprisoned, 
tortured,  shot,  hung.  Ach,  lieber  Gott,  let  him 
be  moderate. 

Ah,  luckless  speech  !  It  heated  the  Scots- 
man's wrath  seven  times  over.  "  Moderate, 
madam  !  "  he  shouted.  *'  I  hate  and  abominate 
moderation  and  compromises  and  discretions  and 
all  such  subtle  crafts  and  devices  invented  by  the 
Father  of  Lies  for  the  de§tru£):ion  of  the  soul. 
Moderate  when  I,  a  free  British  citizen,  civis 
BritannuSy  am  hindered  in  my  lawful  occasions  by 
a  Neapolitan  Dogberry,"  etc.  etc.  etc. 

The  police  inspedlor,  who  was  not  really  a  bad 
man,  took  it  all  in  good  part. 

"  Pazienza,  signore  capitano "  he  began. 

"  Capitano  !  "  yelled  he  of  the  Strident  voice. 
"  Am  I,  a  Student  of  humanity  in  the  singular 
and  in  the  plural — mark  that,  singular  and  plural 
— a  scholar,  a  philosopher  and  a  Christian  soul, 
which  is  a  grand  thing  to  be,  though  I  grant  you 
a  poor  profession,  am  I  for  ever  to  have  thruSt 
upon  me  the  tide  and  designation  of  some  de- 
mented swashbuckler  that  has  gotten  into  the 
brains  of  you  and  your  superiors  like  a  maggot 
in  a  rotten  ploom  ?  Capitano  !  In  the  name  of 
all  the  gods  and  saints  whom  you  ignorantly 
worship,  do  I  look  like  a  capitano  ?  " 

122 


JOHN     STUART     BLACKIE 

A  grin  of  Italian  breadth  and  richness  trans- 
figured the  official's  countenance  as  he  answered, 
**  Dawero  no,  signore  filosofo  ". 

And  indeed,  for  all  its  ferocity  of  language  and 
bearing,  anything  less  military  than  the  figure  of 
the  suspe£t  could  hardly  have  been  imagined. 
He  was  an  undersized  and  slightly  built  youth  of 
two-and-twenty,  clad  in  a  shabby  and  ill-fitting 
summer  suit  that  had  once  called  itself  white. 
His  fine  light  brown  hair  flowed  about  his 
shoulders,  according  to  the  fashion  that  be- 
tokened the  German  student  of  the  'thirties.  His 
hands  were  white  and  small.  That  his  face  was 
blotched  with  a  disfiguring  skin  complaint  was  a 
pity,  for  his  features  were  unusually  delicate  and 
regular  and  were  saved  from  being  merely  beauti- 
ful by  a  pair  of  restless  blue  eyes  in  which  intelli- 
gence, fury,  impishness  and  good  humour 
sparkled  all  at  once — the  eyes  of  a  born  aftor. 
His  movements  were  ungraceful  but  amazingly 
lively  and  expressive.  He  Stamped  and  danced 
round  the  common-room  of  the  albergo,  flung  his 
arms  about,  shook  his  mane,  and  finally  threw 
himself  on  a  bench  in  an  attitude  of  grotesque 
despair. 

The  inspeftor  was  sympathetic,  but  what  could 
he  do  ?  All  he  knew  was  that  an  English  name 
very  like  the  signorino's  appeared  on  the  black 
list  of  the  Neapolitan  police.  No  doubt  there 
had  been  a  mistake,  but  that  would  be  at  once 
rectified  when  the  signorino's  passport  had  been 

123 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

sent  back  to  Rome  for  verification.  That  would 
take  some  days,  and  meanwhile  the  signorino 
mu§t  consider  himself  under  open  arreft. 

A  groan  came  from  the  figure  on  the  bench. 

"  Ma  che,  signore  filosofo,"  rejoined  the  in- 
speftor,  "  la  prima  delle  virtuti  filosofiche,  non  e 
la  pazienza  ?    Pazienza  e  coraggio,  signore." 

Whereat  John  Stuart  Blackie,  Student  of  the 
Universities  of  Aberdeen,  Edinburgh,  Gottingen 
and  Berlin,  leaped  from  his  recumbent  gloom, 
kissed  the  police  inspeftor  on  both  cheeks,  and 
shook  him  warmly  by  both  hands.  *'  You're 
right,  man,"  he  said  solemnly,  "  categorically  and 
completely  right.  Cicero  had  to  put  up  with 
more  than  this  at  Mola  di  Gaeta,  and  who  am  I 
that  I  should  complain?  Will  you  do  me  the 
pleasure  of  drinking  a  bottle  of  wine  with  me  ?  " 

The  policeman  did,  and  Mr.  Blackie  communed 
delightedly  with  the  shade  of  Cicero  for  several 
days  until,  having  been  certified  from  Rome  as 
neither  capitano  nor  carhonaro^  he  took  an  affedion- 
ate  farewell  of  the  police  inspedor  and  went  on 
his  way  to  Naples. 

I  have  taken  the  liberty  of  reconStrufting  this 
little  incident  of  Blackie's  youth  for  the  sake  of 
the  pidure  it  gives  of  the  man,  not  only  as  he  was 
in  1 83 1  but  as  he  remained  in  all  essential  respeds 
throughout  his  long  life.  He  died  in  1895,  in  his 
eighty-sixth  year,  having  enjoyed  for  nearly  half 
a  century  a  unique  position  in  the  regard  of  his 
fellow -Scots.    He  was  not  precisely  respeded : 

124 


JOHN     STUART     BLACKIE 

nobody  could  ever  harbour  so  chilly  a  feeling 
as  respe6t  towards  Blackie.  He  was  not  precisely 
admired,  partly  because  he  was  not  precisely 
admirable  and  partly  because  admiration  implies 
something  that  is  beyond  our  power  to  imitate. 
Rather  he  was  adored,  with  that  vicarious  and 
deeply  revelling  satisfadion  men  feel  in  the  con- 
templation of  their  national  genius  made  flesh. 
For  every  patriotic  Scot,  however  Staid  he  may 
appear,  cherishes  in  some  corner  of  his  being  the 
notion  that  in  spirit  he  is  a  Blackie. 

This  may  seem  a  paradox,  for  excepting  his 
pedantry,  his  vanity,  his  constant  itch  to  be  im- 
proving people  in  and  out  of  season,  his  occa- 
sional bad  manners  and  his  almost  invariable  bad 
taite,  Blackie  had  nothing  in  common  with  that 
conglomerate  of  the  bleaker  virtues  and  more 
sordid  vices  that  is  the  conventional  image  of  the 
Scot.  He  had  not  even  the  conventional  humour 
of  the  Scot,  for,  ftrictly  speaking,  he  had  no  sense 
of  humour  at  all,  but  only  a  sense  of  fun,  which  is 
not  the  same  thing.  Of  the  Scot's  proverbial 
caution  (which  is  but  another  name  for  self- 
di^ruSt)  he  was  utterly  devoid.  His  reckless 
tongue  and  manners  landed  him  in  many  a  scrape, 
and  on  one  occasion  all  but  ruined  his  career. 
He  was  boisterous,  bombastic,  theatrical,  affec- 
tionate and  generous  to  an  embarrassing  degree. 
His  opinion  on  any  subjed:  requiring  judgment 
was  liable  to  change  at  leaSt  once  in  every  twenty- 
four  hours  and  in  spite  of  all  changes  was  invari- 

125 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

ably  wrong.  An  exception  may  be  made  in 
favour  of  his  views  on  the  pronunciation  of 
classical  Greek  and  the  importance  of  preserving 
the  Gaelic  tongue,  which  he  maintained  to  his 
dying  day.  Yet,  within  a  few  hours  of  his  death, 
he  made  as  his  confession  of  faith  that  the  only 
things  that  mattered  were  "  the  poems  of  Burns 
and  the  Psalms  of  David,  but  the  Psalmi^  fir§t ". 
One  can  hardly  help  feeling  that  had  he  lived  a 
day  longer  he  might  have  reversed  the  order  and 
died  protecting  with  his  la§t  gasp  his  innocence 
of  any  inconsistency. 

The  Celtic  temperament  has  been  held  re- 
sponsible for  so  much  that  it  would  be  no  great 
addition  to  its  burden  to  saddle  it  with  Blackie's 
flightiness,  but  it  would  be  entirely  wrong.  For 
Blackie,  though  he  inaugurated  a  mild  Celtic 
revival  in  Scotland,  was  no  Celt.  He  was  a  Low- 
lander  born  and  bred.  He  came  of  an  old 
Border  Stock  ;  he  was  born  in  Glasgow  ;  and  he 
spent  most  of  his  childhood,  youth  and  early 
manhood  in  Aberdeen — a  city  which,  being  an 
outpoSt  setdement,  is  rigorously  anti-Celtic  alike 
in  speech  and  culture.  He  had  a  sHght  Strain  of 
Highland  blood  that  his  parents  thought  im- 
portant enough  to  be  commemorated  by  the  name 
of  Stuart  being  given  to  him  in  baptism,  but  it 
does  not  appear  that  he  himself  took  any  interest 
in  his  remote  Highland  connexions,  or  that  he 
was  ever  guilty  of  the  foolish  Lowland  snobbery 
that   boasts    vaguely    of  a   Highland   anceStry. 

126 


JOHN     STUART     BLACKIE 

Blackie  was  too  simple  and  too  much  of  an  egoi§t 
to  be  a  snob,  and  the  idea  that  descent  could 
be  worth  a  moment's  consideration  beside  the 
eternal  miracle  of  the  individual  man  would  have 
seemed  to  him  the  height  of  absurdity.  It  is 
true  that  he  laboured  hard  to  bring  about  a 
Celtic  revival  in  Scotland,  but  his  motives  were 
perfedly  disinterested.  He  was  a  romantic  philo- 
logist juSt  as  Walter  Scott  was  a  romantic  anti- 
quarian, and  his  enthusiasm  for  the  Gaelic  tongue 
proceeded  solely  from  a  patriotic  desire  to  pre- 
serve a  national  treasure  that  was  in  danger  of 
being  loSt.  He  was  far  advanced  in  life  when  the 
fad  came  upon  him.  During  a  holiday  in  Skye 
he  casually  asked  the  local  poStman,  who  did  his 
rounds  on  a  pony,  what  was  the  Gaelic  for 
horse.  He  was  told  each^  and  the  sudden  realisa- 
tion that  each  muSt  be  the  same  as  equus  and  liriro^ 
convinced  the  Professor  of  Greek  at  the  Univer- 
sity of  Edinburgh  that  Gaelic  was  a  language  of 
some  importance.  The  Gaels  were  appreciative 
of  his  interest.  They  presented  him  with  illumin- 
ated addresses  and  plied  him  with  as  much 
flattery  as  ever  he  could  absorb  ;  but  they  never 
failed  to  snigger  when  he  attempted  to  speak  their 
mother-tongue. 

That  a  being  so  inconsequential  in  charafter 
and  attainments  should  have  attained  a  command- 
ing position  in  the  academic  life  of  Scotland  may 
seem  Strange,  but  it  is  in  part  at  leaSt  explained 
by  the  conditions  that  prevailed  in  the  Scottish 

127 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

universities  until  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
century  and  even  later.  On  the  ^rength  of  a 
comparatively  low  percentage  of  illiteracy  in  the 
general  population  Scotsmen  persisted,  with  a 
Chinese  complacency,  in  boating  of  their  superior 
"education",  and  took  a  childish  pleasure  in 
recalling  the  fad:  that  their  little  country  had  four 
universities  when  mighty  England  had  but  two. 
Except  that  the  motive  of  bringing  learning  to 
every  man's  door  was  praiseworthy,  there  was 
really  nothing  to  boa§t  about,  and  much  to  regret. 
The  country  could  barely  afford  one  university, 
and  the  pretence  of  maintaining  four  could  not 
fail  to  be  disastrous.  It  resulted  in  a  chronic 
State  of  penury  and  Stagnation  in  which  the  very 
idea  of  a  university  came  near  to  perishing 
altogether.  It  is  true  that  in  the  eighteenth 
century  Edinburgh  developed  a  famous  school  of 
medicine  and  that  in  Glasgow  also  medical  and 
scientific  Studies  may  be  said  to  have  flourished. 
Divinity  was  perhaps  in  no  worse  case  in  Scotland 
than  anywhere  else,  and  it  is  at  leaSt  to  the  Kirk's 
credit  that  it  always  required  candidates  for  its 
ministry  to  have  a  reasonable  knowledge  of 
Hebrew.  Law  was  hardly  taught  at  all,  and 
aspirants  to  the  Bar,  who  really  wanted  to  learn 
something,  betook  themselves  to  the  schools  of 
Leyden  and  Utrecht.  But  it  was  in  the  liberal 
arts  that  the  academic  nakedness  of  the  land  was 
most  apparent.  The  occasional  appearance  of  a 
commanding  figure  like  Adam  Smith,  Dugald 

128 


JOHN     STUART     BLACKIE 

Stewart  or  Thomas  Reid  cannot  disguise  the  fadt 
that  the  teaching  personnel  was  poor  and  the 
standards  of  inStrudion  pitiable.  In  all  the  uni- 
versities the  faculties  of  arts  were  thronged  with 
Students  —  many  mere  children  of  eleven  or 
twelve — of  whom  the  only  qualification  required 
was  that  they  could  read  and  write,  though  if 
they  knew  a  little  Latin  grammar,  so  much  the 
better.  At  "  college "  they  learned  enough 
Latin  to  be  able  to  Stumble  through  a  book  of 
Csesar  or  Livy,  to  recognise  a  book  of  Virgil, 
and  to  repeat  a  few  of  Horace's  odes  by  heart ; 
enough  Greek  to  read  a  little  Homer  and  Xeno- 
phon ;  enough  philosophy  to  understand  the 
meaning  of  non  diHrihutio  medii;  and  enough 
mathematics  to  be  able  to  solve  a  quadratic 
equation.  Degrees  in  arts,  therefore,  were  easy 
to  obtain,  but  though  many  matriculated  few 
troubled  to  graduate  in  a  faculty  that  was  regarded 
as  a  mere  anteroom  to  the  specialised  Studies  of 
the  other  faculties.  Li  all  the  circumstances 
Samuel  Johnson  was  imusually  moderate  when 
he  likened  learning  in  Scotland  to  food  in  a 
beleaguered  town — ^where  everybody  gets  a  little 
and  nobody  gets  enough.  To  aggravate  the 
general  conditions,  the  two  smaller  and  poorer 
of  the  Scottish  imiversities  kept  up  the  genteel 
pretence  of  a  collegiate  constitution.  St.  Andrews 
had  three  and  Aberdeen  two  "  colleges  ".  To-day 
the  names  alone  survive,  but  in  1821,  when  John 
Blackie  was  entered  as  "  civis  universitath  Aber- 

129  K 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

donienseh  "  at  the  ripe  age  of  twelve,  King's  and 
Marischal  were  rival  institutions,  both  miserably- 
equipped  but  equally  determined  at  all  co§ts  to 
maintain  their  dignity  as  independent  corpora- 
tions. At  Marischal,  which  was  Blackie's  college, 
there  was  no  Professor  of  Humanity.  The 
students  were  drilled  in  Latin  accidence  and 
syntax  by  the  reftor  of  the  Grammar  School,  who 
filled  the  office  of  ledhirer. 

For  a  lad  who  was  intended  for  the  lower 
branch  of  the  law,  the  curriculum  was  perhaps 
sufficient ;  but  when,  after  a  short  experience 
of  an  Aberdeen  "  advocate's "  office,  certain 
adolescent  heart  searchings  convinced  Blackie 
that  he  had  a  religious  vocation,  he  was  sent  to 
Edinburgh  to  learn  a  little  Greek  and  to  pick 
up,  if  possible,  some  general  culture  from 
"  Christopher  North  ".  He  remained  in  Edin- 
burgh nearly  two  years,  during  which  time  he 
learned  no  more  Greek  than  sufficed  to  enable 
him  to  pick  his  way  through  the  Gospels  with 
the  aid  of  the  Authorised  Version,  and,  after  a 
promising  Start,  grievously  disappointed  Wilson 
by  his  negleft  of  class  exercises.  In  due  course 
cruSty  Christopher  spoke  to  him  more  in  sorrow 
than  in  anger.  "  What  has  been  the  matter, 
Mr.  Blackie?  There  is  something  here  that  I 
cannot  understand.  You  gave  me  in  an  excellent 
essay,  one  of  the  beSt  I  have  received  this  session, 
and  I  fully  expefted  to  have  you  on  my  prize-liSt ; 
but  you  have  given  me  only  one,  and  you  know 
'  130 


JOHN     STUART     BLACKIE 

my  rule."  It  is  recorded  that  Blackie  wept,  but 
said  nothing.  He  never  lacked  courage,  but 
there  are  some  communications  that  simply  can- 
not be  made.  How,  for  example,  at  the  age  of 
sixteen  could  one  tell  Christopher  North  that 
the  Study  of  moral  philosophy,  however  excellent, 
was  as  filthy  rags  compared  with  the  acquisition 
of  evangelical  truth  and  the  assurance  of  the  life 
eternal  ? 

Poor  John!  Edinburgh  in  1825,  for  all  its 
superior  culture,  was  no  place  for  him.  There 
was  more  free  emotion  in  the  air  than  was  healthy 
for  an  exceptionally  impressionable  youth  of 
sixteen.  Scotland  was  on  the  eve  of  its  fiercest 
religious  Struggle  since  the  days  of  Knox.  For 
a  century  the  Moderate  party  had  ruled  the  Kirk, 
often  with  a  high  hand,  but  on  the  whole  in  the 
interests  of  commonsense  and  fairplay  for  the 
average  sensual  men  for  whom,  after  all,  Christ 
died.  Now,  however,  their  long  ascendancy 
was  drawing  to  a  close.  The  Evangelicals,  from 
a  contemptible  faftion,  torn  by  intestine  feuds, 
had  become  a  powerful  and  disciplined  party, 
which  every  year  attrafted  to  itself  in  increasing 
numbers  the  youth,  the  enthusiasm,  the  learning 
and,  what  was  really  serious,  the  new  wealth  of 
the  country.  In  1825  adhial  warfare  was  Still 
some  years  distant,  but  the  rival  parties  were 
massing  their  forces  and  concentratiag  upon 
Strategical  points.  The  Moderates  were  silent, 
sullen  and  bitter,  knowing  that  they  would  have 

131 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

to  fight  a  losing  battle.  The  Evangelicals  were 
vocal  and  arrogant.  The  citadel  was  already  in 
their  hands,  and  they  could  boaSt  from  their 
pulpits  (and  did)  that  Moab  was  their  washpot 
and  over  Edom  would  they  throw  their  shoe. 
Blackie,  with  his  constitutional  weakness  for 
being  on  the  side  of  the  angels,  succumbed  to 
the  prevailing  sentiment  of  Edinburgh.  He 
searched  the  Scriptures,  visited  the  slums,  prayed 
without  ceasing  and  lamented  his  lo§t  condition. 
This  was  all  very  well,  but  it  was  not  what  his 
father  had  sent  him  to  Edinburgh  for.  Mr. 
Alexander  Blackie  was  a  quiet  but  determined 
Moderate  who,  as  a  devout  man  and  a  bank 
manager,  knew  that  there  was  a  time  for  all 
things.  In  consequence  of  his  unseasonable 
piety  John  was  forthwith  brought  back  to 
Aberdeen  so  that  he  might  complete  his  theo- 
logical course  in  an  atmosphere  which,  if  chilly, 
was  at  lea§t  uncontaminated  by  the  hot  and 
clammy  breath  of  the  evangelical  sirocco  that 
blew  over  the  south  and  we§t.  It  was  a  happy 
change.  The  Professor  of  Divinity  at  Marischal 
College,  Dr.  Brown,  who  was  also  Principal  of 
the  University,  had  once  held  a  chair  at  Utrecht, 
and  his  great  ambition  was  to  revive  at  Aberdeen 
the  art  of  Latin  disputation.  Blackie  was  one  of 
the  few  men  who  responded  to  his  efforts.  He 
did  not  learn  much  theology  from  him — nobody 
ever  did  for  the  good  reason  that  Dr.  Brown 
had  never  been  able  to  learn  much  himself — but 

132 


JOHN     STUART     BLACKIE 

he  did  learn  the  art  of  thinking  and  speaking  in 
moderately  classical  Latin,  and  the  process  cleared 
and  cheered  him  wonderfully.  Still  Mr.  Blackie, 
senior,  was  not  satisfied.  John  continued  to  be 
too  religious  and  moody  for  his  father's  ta§te,  and 
so  the  desperate  course  was  taken  of  sending  him 
to  Germany  "  to  have  his  jacket  widened  ",  as  it 
was  expressed.  In  April  1829  he  sailed  from 
Leith  in  the  Hamburg  packet  with  two  com- 
panions, sons  of  the  minister  of  Old  Machar,  en 
route  for  Gottingen. 

There  is  to  this  day,  with  all  its  freedom  of 
communication  and  breaking  down  of  old  barriers, 
something  pathetic  about  the  plight  of  the  young 
Scotsman  who  makes  his  firSt  adventure  to  the 
Continent  or  even  across  the  Border.  He  is  as 
raw  and  defenceless  as  a  crab  without  its  carapace. 
All  his  life  he  has  lived  in  a  community  that  may 
fairly  be  described  as  the  hermit  kingdom  of 
Western  Europe,  and  mutatu  mufandisy  he  has  all 
the  virtues  and  limitations  of  a  Tibetan — that  is 
to  say,  he  is  an  intelligent — at  times  extremely 
intelligent — kindly  soul  who  has  been  brought 
up  in  the  belief  that  religion  and  civilisation, 
properly  understood,  are  bounded  by  his  own 
surly  coafts  and  the  river  Tweed.  He  has  a 
profound  respeft  for  his  national  institutions, 
which  are  peculiar  without  being  in  the  leaSt 
original.  They  consist  for  the  moSt  part  of  a 
jurisprudence  in  which  the  Civil  Law  and  French 
feudalism  hold  an  uneasy  converse  with  certain 

135 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

elements  of  the  common  law  of  England,  a  church 
that  is   the   perfeftion  of  Presbyterianism  but 
has    lo^   all  appreciable   contaQ:  with   Geneva 
or  Holland,  and  a  manner  of  speaking  English 
which  is  with  difficulty  intelligible  to  the  average 
English  ear  by  reason  of  its  pure  vowels  and 
clear    articulation.     The    discovery    that    these 
worthy  institutions  are  not  valued  by  the  world 
at  large  as  he  values  them  is  disconcerting  and 
painful  in  the  extreme,  and  the  young  Scot's  firSt 
reaction  to  it  is  that  the  world  at  large  mu§t  be 
wrong.     This  is  particularly  so  in  the  matter  of 
religion.     Stridly  speaking,  the  Scottish  people 
have  very  little  religious  capacity — ^witness  the 
fa6t  that  they  have  produced  no  religious  litera- 
ture of  any  repute — ^but  they  are  (or  were  until 
recently)   convinced  that  the  whole  of  Chris- 
tianity consists  in  certain  religious  observances, 
of  which  "  Sabbath  "  observance  is  by  far  the 
most  important.     The  rigours  of  the  Scottish 
Sabbath  have  lately  been  somewhat  mitigated, 
but  within  the  memory  of  men  not  far  advanced 
in  middle  life  they  were  formidable  indeed.     All 
secular  amusements  other  than  eating  and  sleep- 
ing, which  were  freely  indulged  in,  were  not 
merely  forbidden  ;  they  were  unthinkable.     The 
child  who  absent-mindedly  hummed  a  "  profane  " 
tune  sent  a  thrill  of  genuine  horror  through  the 
nursery,  and  even  the  occasional  singing  of  the 
National  Anthem  in  church  produced  an  un- 
comfortable feeling.     The  writing  of  letters  was 

134 


JOHN     STUART     BLACKIE 

winked  at  in  liberal  families,  always  provided 
that  they  were  not  business  letters  and  were 
po§ted  after  dark.  To  read  a  novel  was  scandal- 
ous, while  to  open  a  newspaper  (except  for  the 
purpose  of  referring  to  church  notices)  was  the 
abomination  of  desolation.  For  the  purpose  of 
going  to  or  from  church,  but  not  otherwise,  it 
was  lawful  for  the  laity  (though  not  expedient) 
to  ride  in  a  Sunday  tramcar.  For  a  minister, 
however,  who  mu§t  testify  to  the  Church's 
disapproval  of  Sunday  tramways,  a  cab  was  a 
religious  necessity. 

Such  being  the  Sabbath  role  of  life  in  the 
'eighties  and  'nineties,  one  can  imagine  its 
austerity  in  1829,  and  John  Blackie's  consequent 
discomfort  at  finding  that  Sunday  at  Gottingen 
was  not  at  all  like  the  Lord's  Day  at  Aberdeen. 
People  in  general  did  not  go  to  church  much,  but 
they  went  to  the  opera  a  good  deal,  and  in  that 
regard  Students  and  professors,  even  professors 
of  theology,  were  the  wor§t  sinners.  Against 
that  there  was  the  quelling  fad:  that  these  pro- 
fessors and  Students  represented  a  plane  of  know- 
ledge that  the  simple  Scot  had  never  even 
imagined.  To  him  the  teaching  of  the  German 
universities  was  a  revelation  as  full  of  thimderings 
and  bright  light  as  that  which  befell  Paul  on  the 
Damascus  road,  and  hardly  less  bewildering. 
Here  was  learning  as  large  as  life,  if  not  larger. 
Compared  with  Saalfeld  and  Ottfried  Miiller 
Principal  Brown  was  a  shrunken  and  misshapen 

135 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

pigmy,   and   even   Chriftopher   North   was   no 
giant.     And  when,  after  a  semester  at  Gottingen 
Blackie  went  to  Berlin  and  heard  Schleiermacher, 
Neander  and  Boeckh,  the  conquest  of  his  native 
innocence  was  complete.     Even  his  Sabbatarian- 
ism, which  hitherto  he  had  continued  to  wear 
with  a  dour  defiance,  was  well-nigh  stripped  from 
him  by  a  casual  remark  of  Neander's  that  the 
Scottish  notion  of  Sunday  observance  was  "  etwas 
jiidisch,  nicht  wahr  ?  "     This   occurred  in  the 
course  of  a  civil  conversation  at   one  of  the 
professor's    Sunday   evening    receptions    which 
Blackie,  after  some  consideration,  considered  he 
might  lawfully  attend.     Seldom  has  so  trite  a 
remark  excited  so  much  commotion  in  the  hearer. 
It  was  the  decisive  moment  of  his  life.     For 
the  first  time,  as  he  himself  records,  he  realised 
that  Scottish  theology  and  Chriftianity  were  not 
convertible  terms,  and  the  discovery  gave  him 
a  sudden   diStaSte  for  the  ministry.     A  joyous 
Wanderjahre  in  Italy,  which  followed  the  German 
year,  served  only  to  confirm  his  change  of  mind. 
He  returned  to  Aberdeen  in  high  spirits,  pro- 
claiming that  nothing  would  induce  him  to  be- 
come a  minister,  and  that  his  mission  in  life 
would  be  to  reform  the  teaching  of  the  human- 
ities in  the  Scottish  universities  according  to  the 
best  German  models.     And  this,  under  Provi- 
dence, whose  ways  are  incalculable,  he  did  after 
a  fashion  achieve. 

His  initial  prospers  were  not  bright — in  faft 
136 


JOHN     STUART     BLACKIE 

anyone  less  fitted  by  nature  and  attainments  to 
make  an  academic  figure  could  hardly  have 
existed  between  Maidenkirk  and  John  o'  Groat's. 
It  is  true  that  he  returned  from  the  Continent  with 
a  very  decent  measure  of  what  may  be  termed 
accomplishments.  Ottfried  Miiller  and  Boeckh, 
Schleiermacher,  Neander  and  Strauss  had  given 
him  such  general  notions  of  culture  as  an  ex- 
tremely ignorant  but  intelligent  foreign  Student 
might  pick  up  in  a  couple  of  semesters.  In  Italy 
he  had  enjoyed  the  friendship  and  fatherly  guid- 
ance of  Bunsen.  Starting  with  a  good  Store  of 
scholastic  Latin,  juSt  a  litde  Greek  and  no  modern 
language,  he  had  within  two  years  learned  to 
speak,  write  and  think  in  German  and  Italian, 
liberalised  his  Latin  and  advanced  his  Greek.  He 
had  also  acquired  a  working  knowledge  of 
Romaic  and  of  English  as  it  is  generally  spoken. 
The  expediency  of  the  latter  accomplishment 
would  probably  not  have  occurred  to  him  had 
not  a  fellow-Student  asked  him  to  give  a  few 
lessons  in  English  in  return  for  some  assistance 
with  Goethe  and  Schiller.  Blackie,  ever  con- 
scientious, made  a  diligent  Study  of  phonetics 
according  to  Walker's  Did^ionary,^  and  for  the 
rest  of  his  life  he  prided  himself  on  the  corredi- 
tude  of  his  English  speech. 

^  Walker's  Diftionary  (3rd  edition)  included  "  Rules  to  be  observed 
by  the  Natives  of  Scotland  for  attaining  a  JuSt  Pronunciation  of 
English  ",  contributed  by  John  Murdoch,  Burns's  schoolmaster  and 
tutor.  Murdoch  had  the  di§lin£tion  of  inStrufting  Burns  in  the 
elements  of  French  and  Talleyrand  in  the  elements  of  English. 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

All  this  was  good  enough  in  its  way,  but 
hardly  enough  to  constitute  a  title  to  a  university 
chair,  even  if  its  limited  value  had  not  been  dis- 
counted by  glaring  demerits.  Blackie  had  Studied 
at  four  universities  with  credit  but  without  special 
distinction  :  he  had  not  even  a  degree.  He  had 
considerable  learning,  garnished  with  a  certain 
amount  of  fantastic  pedantry,  but  he  was  no 
scholar,  if  by  the  term  scholar  we  understand 
one  who  can  so  organise  his  learning  that  it 
becomes  something  more  than  the  mere  aggre- 
gate of  all  he  knows.  For  teaching  he  had  no 
capacity  whatever.  In  themselves  these  defeds 
would  have  been  of  little  account.  The  Scottish 
universities  were  full  of  men  who  could  neither 
leam  nor  teach ;  but  they  were  grave  men  who 
rode  cannily,  whose  orthodoxy  and  devotion  to 
the  Tory  party  were  above  suspicion,  and  who 
could  hold  their  tongues.  But  Blackie  was  a 
noisy,  garrulous,  guffawing,  opinionative  fellow, 
uncouth  in  dress,  eccentric  in  demeanour — 

He'll  flourish  bludgeons  and  wear  tartan  breeks, 
A  monftrous  §lock  and  lang  hair  ower  the  cheeks — 

a  latitudinarian,  a  Radical  and,  worSt  of  all,  a  man 
who  could  never  be  made  to  understand  the 
diflference  between  thinking  a  thing  and  saying  it. 
Yet  the  improbable  happened;  nor  had  Blackie 
very  long  to  wait  for  it.  Seven  years  after  his 
return  from  the  Continent  he  had  a  chair.  In 
the  interval  he  had  been  admitted  to  the  Scots 

138 


JOHN     STUART     BLACKIE 

Bar  and  had  pradised  as  an  advocate — that  is  to 
say,  he  had  frequented  ParUament  House  daily 
and  had  held  two  briefs  in  the  course  of  five 
years.  These  Edinburgh  days,  however,  were 
not  unprofitable.  He  zealously  continued  his 
Greek  Studies.  His  knowledge  of  German  and 
his  facile  pen  found  him  in  bread  and  cheese 
and  even  toddy  for  social  occasions.  While  §till 
reading  law  as  a  Student  he  had  undertaken  a 
translation  of  Part  I.  of  FauH.  (Part  II.  he  held 
in  no  esteem.)  When  it  appeared  Carlyle  and 
G.  H.  Lewes  spoke  well  of  it,  but  it  could  not 
please  anybody  more  than  it  pleased  Blackie 
himself.  "  It  has  been  my  firSt  and  chief  en- 
deavour ",  he  wrote  in  the  preface,  "  to  seize, 
if  possible,  the  very  soul  and  living  power  of 
the  German  rather  than  to  give  a  careful  and 
anxious  transcription  of  every  individual  line  or 
minute  expression."  This  is  Blackie  to  per- 
feftion  in  its  flamboyant  assurance  and  fine  con- 
tempt for  exaditude  as  a  slave  virtue.  All  his 
life  he  loved  attempting  magnificent  things  in  a 
slapdash  way  and,  whatever  others  might  think, 
he  was  seldom  dissatisfied  with  the  result.  Such 
simple  enthusiasms  are  apt  to  be  infectious.  On 
the  Strength  of  the  favourable  reception  of  Fault 
he  became  a  regular  contributor  to  Blackjvood 
and  the  Foreign  Giuarterly  Review.  For  some  years 
he  confined  himself  to  German  subjefts,  but  in 
1838,  feeling  that  he  now  knew  enough  Greek 
to  be  going  on  with,  he  wrote  an  article  on 

139 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

Miiller's  Eumenides  in  which,  with  much  flourish- 
ing of  the  bludgeon,  he  proclaimed  his  faith  in 
German  classical  scholarship  and  his  undying 
contempt  for  the  English  variety.  In  the  follow- 
ing year,  having  begun  a  translation  of  Aeschylus, 
he  gave  the  world,  through  the  medium  of  the 
Foreign  §luarterly,  his  views  on  "  Greek  Rhythms 
and  Metres  ",  a  subjeft  which  he  was  peculiarly 
unfitted  to  discuss  profitably ;  for  though  the 
mo§t  inveterate  jingler  and  rhyme-slinger  that 
ever  lived  he  had  a  poor  ear  and  was  incapable 
of  writing  a  musical  line  of  verse.  But  the 
article  was  fresh,  provocative  and,  in  its  way, 
erudite,  and  it  appeared  at  a  moment  which 
gained  it  more  attention  than  it  might  otherwise 
have  received.  Only  a  few  weeks  before  the 
date  of  publication  the  author  had  been  ap- 
pointed to  the  newly  established  chair  of  Humanity 
at  Marischal  College,  Aberdeen. 

Blackie's  appointment  was  denounced  at  the 
time  as  a  Whig  job,  and  so  it  was.  The  member 
of  ParUament  for  Aberdeen,  Mr.  Bannerman,  was 
a  great  friend  of  the  Blackie  family,  and  a  man 
of  some  address  and  interest.  He  persuaded  the 
Government  to  establish  and  endow  a  chair  of 
Humanity  at  Marischal  College  "  with  me  to 
recommend  a  man  the  place  'ud  ju§t  about  fit ". 
His  recommendation  of  Mr.  John  Stuart  Blackie, 
advocate,  was  duly  accepted.  It  was  a  great 
Stroke  of  fortune,  and  there  was  nothing  for 
Blackie  to  do  but  to  thank  God  for  His  good  gift 

140 


JOHN     STUART     BLACKIE 

and  to  proceed  to  enjoy  it.  Nothing,  that  is, 
that  would  have  occurred  to  anyone  not  affli6ted 
with  that  predilection  for  the  unseasonable  that 
in  Scotland  is  known  as  "  principle  ".  With  Her 
Majesty's  commission  in  his  hands,  Blackie 
suddenly  bethought  himself  of  a  horrid  obstacle 
to  his  installation,  viz.  the  Westminster  Confession 
of  Faith,  which  in  those  days  of  imiversity  teSts 
every  professor-eleft  was  required  to  subscribe. 
Could  the  pupil  of  Neander  and  Schleiermacher 
conscientiously  sign  such  a  thing,  and  if  so,  on 
what  conditions  ?  It  was  a  hard  question,  and 
Blackie's  answer,  with  its  droll  mingling  of 
innocence  and  guile,  was  the  worSt  possible.  He 
appeared  before  the  Presbytery  of  Aberdeen  and 
signed  the  gruesome  document.  Then,  when 
the  clerk  was  proceeding  to  make  out  the  usual 
certificate,  he  requested  that  it  should  be  put  on 
record  that  he  had  signed  the  Confession  "not 
as  my  private  confession  of  faith,  nor  as  a  church- 
man learned  in  theology,  but  in  my  public  pro- 
fessorial capacity  and  in  reference  to  University 
offices  and  duties  merely  ".  The  reverend  court 
were  not  in  the  leaSt  impressed.  "  We  have 
nothing  to  do  with  any  gentleman's  mental 
reservations  ",  was  their  reply. 

Now  it  never  annoyed  Blackie  to  be  laughed 
at — ^in  fad  he  Hked  it ;  nor  did  he  mind  being 
contradided,  for  he  had  a  plentiful  supply,  if  not 
of  retorts  courteous,  at  leaSt  of  quips  valiant,  not 
to  speak  of  lies  direft,  and  he  could  flourish  his 

141 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

bludgeon.  What  he  could  not  gland  was  a  snub. 
He  went  out  from  the  Presbytery  with  their 
precious  certificate  in  his  pocket  and  wrath  in 
his  heart.  That  same  evening  he  sent  his  declara- 
tion to  the  two  leading  Aberdeen  newspapers 
with  a  covering  letter  in  which  he  said  what  he 
thought  about  the  Presbytery  of  Aberdeen,  and 
which  in  his  heat  he  forgot  to  mark  "  not  for 
publication ".  The  sequel  was  an  uproar  in 
which  all  parties  lo§t  their  heads.  The  Presby- 
tery, raging  furiously  together,  cited  Mr.  Blackie 
to  "  compear "  before  them  and  apologise ; 
whereat  Mr.  Blackie  said  very  civilly  that  what- 
ever emperors  might  do,  there  would  be  no 
Canossa  for  John  Stuart  Blackie,  and  he  would 
compear  before  the  Devil  fir^ ;  whereat  the 
Presbytery  declared  Mr.  Blackie's  certificate  of 
subscription  null  and  void  and  ordered  him  to 
give  it  up  ;  whereat  Mr.  Blackie  (afting  on  legal 
advice)  said  he  would  do  nothing  of  the  sort ; 
whereat  the  Senatus  of  Marischal  College,  rejoic- 
ing that  the  Whig  intruder  would  now  be  sent 
about  his  business,  postponed  Mr.  Blackie's  instal- 
lation sine  die ;  whereat  Mr.  Blackie  haled  the 
Senatus  before  the  Court  of  Session ;  whereat 
the  Senatus  said  it  was  all  the  Presbytery's  fault ; 
whereat  the  Presbytery  craved  to  be  sifted  as 
defenders  ;  ^  whereat  Lord  Cunninghame  kicked 
the  Presbytery  out  of  court  on  the  ground  that 
their  statutory  duty  to  witness  subscriptions  was 

*  Applied  to  the  Gaurt  to  be  joined  as  defendants. 
142 


JOHN     STUART     BLACKIE 

purely  ministerial ;  whereat  Mr.  Blackie's  joy- 
was  tempered  by  the  reflexion  that  since  his 
appointment  two  years  had  elapsed  during  which 
he  had  not  received  a  penny  of  Stipend,  and  that 
the  Court  had  shown  its  appreciation  of  his  Stand 
for  principle  by  calling  his  scruples  impertinent 
and  deprived  him  of  his  coSts  for  causing  un- 
necessary trouble.  Still  viftory  is  viftory,  and 
to  the  end  of  his  days  Blackie  was  convinced 
that  the  abolition  of  the  University  teSts  in  1853 
was  in  large  measure  due  to  his  adion  in  1839. 

Such  was  the  rough  music  that  preluded  the 
rollicking  comedy  of  academic  life  that  Blackie 
played  for  the  next  half-century.  He  delivered 
an  inaugural  ledhire  full  of  Aufkldrmg  and  uplift, 
which  the  Aberdonians  found  so  entertaining 
that,  when  in  the  following  January — on  the 
sacred  anniversary  of  Burns's  birth — he  dis- 
coursed to  a  popular  audience  on  "  The  Principles 
of  Poetry  and  the  Fine  Arts  ",  the  occasion  was 
a  great  success.  The  little  man  was  elated. 
"  There's  for  you,"  he  wrote  to  his  betrothed, 
Eliza  Wyld.  *'  Platonism  preached  to  the  granite 
ears  of  Aberdeen,  and  with  applause  !  "  There 
was  but  one  flaw  in  the  performance — he  had 
read  the  le6hire,  and  that  vexed  him.  "  I  will 
not  be  satisfied  now  till  I  become  a  great  public 
speaker.  .  .  .  My  intention  is  to  free  myself 
altogether  from  the  bondage  of  the  paper,  and 
get  to  preach  real  poetry  and  eloquence.  ...  A 
bold  caSt  for  an  ered  soul,  looking  not  down  on 

145 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

slavish  paper  !  .  .  .  Let  me  bellow  my  pedagogic 
thunders  grandly  !  "  And  bellow  them  grandly 
he  did  for  the  re§t  of  his  life,  according  to  his  own 
noisy  notion  of  grandeur.  Never  again  did  he 
clip  the  wings  of  his  spoken  words  by  commit- 
ting them  first  to  paper.  Never  again  was  his 
heart  troubled  by  considerations  of  relevance 
or  restraint  in  anything  he  said.  His  tongue 
wagged,  his  spirit  soared,  his  Students  raised 
the  devil's  own  row,  the  vulgar  mob  cheered,  and 
Blackie  was  supremely  happy.  There  was,  no 
doubt,  a  method  in  his  madness.  He  knew — 
and  if  he  did  not  know  beforehand  his  Students 
soon  opened  his  eyes — ^that  he  was  no  teacher 
in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  term,  for  the  devout 
disciple  of  Carlyle  and  future  encomiast  of 
Prussian  Machtpoliti^  lacked  the  capacity  for 
mastership  which  is  the  teacher's  firSt  quality. 
The  Scottish  Student  is  by  nature  turbulent,  but 
he  is  kept  within  bounds  by  his  belief  in  the 
Olympian  charad:er  of  the  professor's  roStrum. 
Now  Blackie  loved  the  Olympian  charafter — 
none  more  so — ^but,  child-like,  he  could  never 
sustain  it  very  long.  He  fidgeted  in  his  lofty 
seat  and  was  for  ever  making  undignified  descents 
to  the  common  level,  enjoying  the  divine  thunder- 
ings  but  loathing  the  detachment  that  gives  them 
their  value  in  the  ears  of  mortal  men.  A  vain 
man — and  Blackie  was  vain  as  a  peacock — who 
also  has  a  craving  for  famiUarity  generally  falls 
into  the  contempt  that  Blackie  juSt  managed  to 

144 


JOHN     STUART     BLACKIE 

escape.  One  degree  less  of  essential  lovable- 
ness,  of  perfed:  innocency,  of  ardent  idealism 
would  have  made  the  difference.  But  as  it  was 
his  frailties  served  him  uncommonly  well.  His 
classroom  was  a  bear-garden,  but  even  a  bear- 
garden may  be  cultivated.  Blackie  made  it  one 
of  his  means  of  propaganda.  His  Students, 
unruly  as  they  were  under  his  in§tru6Hon,  went 
out  into  the  world  and  talked  about  him  as  a 
notable  charafter  who  was  worth  watching.  He 
developed  his  popular  ledhires,  and  if  his  platform 
antics  made  the  public  laugh,  that  was  all  to  the 
good  so  long  as  they  kept  asking  for  more.  He 
pamphleteered  at  prodigious  length  about  uni- 
versity reform,  and  to  prove  that  he  was  a  person 
to  be  taken  seriously  he  finished  his  translation 
of  Aeschylus  and  sold  up  his  household  furniture 
to  pay  for  its  publication. 

In  these  various  ways  the  Professor  of 
Humanity  at  Marischal  College  acquired  a  certain 
fame,  so  that  when,  at  the  end  of  185 1,  he  entered 
as  a  candidate  for  the  chair  of  Greek  at  Edin- 
burgh, his  friends  were  able  with  some  plausi- 
biUty  to  represent  him  as  a  scholar  and  a  man 
of  genius.  The  Town  Council  of  Edinburgh, 
who  were  the  patrons  of  the  chair,  were  quite 
prepared  to  believe  this  even  to  the  extent  of 
forgiving  Blackie  for  omitting  to  prepay  the 
po^age  on  his  application  (testimonials  from 
Ritschl  and  Brandes  enclosed),  which  shows 
how  superior  were  these  worthy  men  to  small 

145  L 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

prejudices.  Blackie  overdid  it,  however.  Instead 
of  allowing  his  antic  disposition  to  get  what 
glamour  it  might  from  the  distance  between 
Edinburgh  and  Aberdeen,  he  mu5l  needs  arrive 
in  Edinburgh  in  full  panoply  of  bludgeon,  breeks 
and  bad  manners  to  condud;  a  personal  canvass 
of  the  patrons.  And  before  his  di^raded  friends 
could  hurtle  him  back  to  Aberdeen  he  had 
mortally  offended  mo^  of  his  potential  supporters. 
To  repair  the  mischief  was  a  heartbreaking  task. 
The  old  scandal  of  the  Confession  of  Faith  was 
raked  up,  and  it  was  further  reported  that  Blackie 
was  an  habitual  Sabbath-breaker  and  contemner 
of  religious  ordinances.  The  Town  Council 
took  a  serious  view  of  such  matters,  as  Agassiz 
found  a  few  years  later.  That  distinguished 
man  applied  for  the  chair  of  Natural  History. 
The  first  councillor  he  canvassed  listened  to  his 
Story  and  put  one  question.  "  Are  ye  a  jined 
member  o'  ony  recognised  releegious  body  ?  " 
Agassiz  retired.  Blackie  was  more  fortunate. 
A  conscientious  bailie  went  to  Aberdeen  to  make 
inquiries  on  the  spot  about  the  candidate's 
Sabbath  Day  doings.  He  brought  back  a  favour- 
able report,  and  after  a  notable  contest  the  casting 
vote  of  Lord  ProvoSt  Duncan  McLaren,  M.P., 
gave  Blackie  the  chair.  On  what  grounds  of 
reason  or  predilection  the  council  made  their 
final  choice  it  passes  the  wit  of  man  to  say. 
Blackie's  moSt  serious  rivals  were  an  Englishman 
and  an  Irishman — Sir  William  Smith  and  Pro- 

146 


JOHN     STUART     BLACKIE 

fessor  Macdonell — both  of  whom  could  have 
given  him  many  points  in  scholarship,  but  it 
would  be  unfair  to  ascribe  his  success  to  the  faQ: 
that  he  was  a  Scotsman.  Nor  was  he  a  com- 
promise, for  no  body  of  men  outside  of  Bedlam 
would  have  chosen  Blackie  by  way  of  a  com- 
promise appointment.  It  was  one  of  those  things 
that  simply  happen  and  which,  if  they  are  to  be 
interpreted  at  all,  can  be  interpreted  only  in  terms 
of  emotion.  One  can  hardly  imagine  any  body 
of  Englishmen  electing  a  man  like  Blackie  to 
anything,  much  less  to  the  dignity  of  a  professor- 
ship :  their  ingrained  sense  of  discipline  and 
resped:  for  public  conventions  would  secure  them 
against  doing  anything  so  interesting  and  in- 
defensible. In  Scotland,  however,  the  tradition 
of  discipline  is  a  recent  growth,  and  to  this  day 
it  is  always  difficult  to  get  a  Scotsman  to  under- 
stand why  things  that  "  are  not  done  *'  ought  not 
to  be  done.  He  makes  a  great  parade  of  his 
respe6i;ability  and  takes  a  genuine  pride  in  it,  ju^ 
as  a  savage  takes  a  genuine  pride  in  his  Store 
clothes  ;  but  there  is  always  the  secret  hankering 
for  the  loin-cloth  and  feathers,  and  sometimes  it 
has  its  way.  So,  one  may  imagine,  it  was  with 
the  God-fearing  burgesses  of  Edinburgh  when 
Blackie  appeared  among  them.  They  heard  the 
old  wild  music  ;  they  were  repelled  ;  they  were 
fascinated  ;  they  Struggled  ;  they  succumbed. 

In  the  event  they  had  no  need  to  be  ashamed. 
Victorian  Edinburgh  was   a   grim  town.     The 

147 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

industrial  revolution  had  Struck  a  mortal  blow 
at  the  intelle£hial  and  artistic  life  that  had  made 
the  last  quarter  of  the  eighteenth  and  firSt  quarter 
of  the  nineteenth  century  the  golden  age  of 
Edinburgh.     And  like  the  men  of  letters  the 
Scottish  gentry,  who  had  hitherto  been  content 
with  Edinburgh  as  their  metropolis,  now  acknow- 
ledged the  supremacy  of  London.     The  evangeli- 
cal revival  wrought  its  glowing  will  upon  those 
that  remained — churchmen  who  made  the  grey 
welkin  ring  with  their  brawling,  lawyers,  doftors, 
second-rate  Government  officials,  bankers,  shop- 
keepers and  a  foul  mass  of  slum  dwellers  who 
could  boaSt  that  they  were  juSt  as  parasitic  as 
their  betters.     Mr.  Turveydrop,  masquerading  in 
Sabbatarian  black  and  a  Geneva  gown,  and  Mrs. 
Grundy  governed  the  city.     It  was  John  Stuart 
Blackie's  fun6tion,  by  the  grace  of  God  and  the 
unwisdom  of  the  Town  Council,  to  aft  as  a 
spiritual  tribune  againSt  that  melancholy  consulate, 
and  knowing  it  he  bore  himself  accordingly. 
"  When  I  walk  along  Princes  Street ",  he  once 
remarked,  "  I  go  with  a  kingly  air,  my  head  ereft, 
my  cheSt  expanded,  my  hair  flowing,  my  plaid 
flying,  my  Stick  swinging.     Do  you  know  what 
makes  me  do  that?    Well,  1*11  tell  you — juSt 
con-ceitr     The  person  at  whom  this  half-brick 
of  paradox  was  flung  was  probably  too  much 
Stunned  to  realise  that  it  was  not  a  confession  but 
an  admonition  to  imitate  one  who  respefted  his 
own  feelings  because  he  was  a  man  made  in  God's 

148 


JOHN     STUART     BLACKIE 

image  and  a  king  in  that  he  would  allow  none 
the  right  to  tell  him  how  to  behave.  He  was 
fond  of  discoursing  ad  libitum  in  this  strain,  and 
no  doubt  did  a  lot  of  good  thereby  in  a  com- 
munity where  people  went  through  life  apologis- 
ing to  Heaven  for  being  a  little  lower  than  the 
angels.  That  his  glorification  of  the  individual 
might  have  sinister  implications  never  troubled 
him :  his  Germanism  never  included  a  liking 
for  Hegel  or  a  knowledge  of  Nietzsche.  If  the 
point  had  been  taken  he  would  have  retorted 
that  John  Stuart  Blackie  was  a  free  aftivity 
specially  created  by  God  and  not  a  schoolman's 
syllogism  invented  by  the  Devil.  And  he  would 
have  been  right,  for,  as  a  dour  Divinity  Student 
grudgingly  observed  of  him,  "  Blackie  is  neither 
orthodox,  heterodox  nor  any  ither  dox  :  he's 
jui§t  himsel."  All  the  same,  his  "  philosophy  ", 
as  he  was  pleased  to  call  it,  could  make  the 
kindliest  of  men  grovel  before  Bismarck,  rant 
sentimental  nonsense  in  praise  of  war,  and  utter 
a  volume  of  War  Songs  from  the  German^  dedi- 
cated to  Carlyle,  who  cordially  acknowledged 
the  compliment  and  supposed  that,  "  if  one  could 
sing,  they  would  be  very  musical  and  heart- 
inspiring  ". 

The  eleftion  to  the  Greek  Chair  at  Edinburgh 
is  the  la§t  thing  in  Blackie's  life  that  can  be  called 
an  event.  The  long  remainder  of  his  years  con- 
sisted merely  of  amusing  incidents  and  a  reputa- 
tion.    He  was  always  busy,  of  course,  for  a 

149 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

reputation  like  Blackie*s  needs  to  be  kept  going, 
and  that  means  hard  work.  He  published 
without  ceasing — ^pamphlets,  books  and  articles 
on  university  reform,  Greek,  poHtics,  morals, 
Scottish  nationality  and  anything  else  on  which 
he  thought  the  public  mind  required  edification, 
and  a  vast  amount  of  doggerel  rhyme,  senti- 
mental, religious,  patriotic  and  facetious.  He 
toured  the  Highlands  and  mo§t  of  Europe,  was 
frequently  in  London  and  met  everybody  he 
could  there.  He  le6hired.  He  sang.  He  even 
danced  as  King  David  did.  Details  would  be 
tedious,  but  a  few  characteristic  dates  may  be 
mentioned.  In  1861  he  visited  Eversley  and 
"  helped  Kingsley  to  drain  a  bottle  of  burgundy  ". 
In  1863,  while  spending  a  holiday  in  Skye,  he 
learned  that  Gaelic  was  an  Aryan  tongue — a 
discovery  that  filled  him  with  such  enthusiasm 
that  after  nearly  twenty  years'  agitation  he  suc- 
ceeded in  establishing  a  Celtic  Chair  at  Edinburgh. 
In  1864  he  le6hired  at  the  Royal  Institution  on 
the  laws  of  Sparta  (so  bellicosely  that  an  indignant 
Quaker  protested  and  left  the  haU)  and  met 
Herbert  Spencer,  whom  he  found  "  logical  with- 
out being  angular — a  very  loveable  sort  of  man  ". 
He  also  breakfasted  with  Gladstone  at  Carlton 
House  Terrace,  where  he  quarrelled  with  a 
Cambridge  Don  about  the  pronunciation  of 
Greek  and  afterwards  felt  a  little  guilty  about  it, 
though  he  was  sure  he  was  "  not  impertinent, 
only   decidedly   and   diStindly   explosive ".     In 

150 


JOHN     STUART     BLACKIE 

1866  he  published  a  translation  of  Homer  which 
has  merits  but  is  not  read.     In  1867  he  met 
Browning,  "  an  adive,  soldier-like,  dired  man, 
a   contract    to    the    meditative   ponderosity    of 
Tennyson".     In    1871    he   went   to   Berlin   to 
witness  and  take  part  in  the  German  triumph, 
wrote  a  sonnet  on  Bismarck  and  sent  it  to  the 
subjed,  who  omitted  to  acknowledge  receipt  of 
same.     In    1872    he    collogued    with    Cardinal 
Manning  and  dabbled  in  spiritualism,  for  which 
he  was  severely  rebuked  by  Carlyle.     In  1874  he 
heard  Bradlaugh  and  liked  him  so  much  that  he 
wrote  him  a  long  letter  hoping  "  that  in  the 
Socratic  way  I  may  do  him  some  good ",  in 
which  he  was  disappointed,  though  Bradlaugh 
was  very  civil.     In  the  same  year  he  gave  the 
fira  of  the  ledhires  on  Scottish  song,  with  vocal 
illustrations  by  himself,  which  continued  to  be 
a  popular  entertaiimient  for  many  years.    In  1 880 
he  espoused  the  cause  of  the  Highland  crofters 
with  an  hone^  zeal  that  excused  a  multitude  of 
indiscretions.     In  May  1882,  ledhiring  at  Oxford, 
he   used   the   Master   of  BallioFs    surname   to 
illustrate  his  views  on  Greek  accentuation,  which 
so  hurt  the  little  panjandrum's  dignity  that  he 
walked  out.     Three  months  later,   being  well 
over  three  score  and  ten,  he  resigned  his  professor- 
ship and  devoted  the  thirteen  years  of  life  that 
remained  to  him  to  the  maintenance  of  his  char- 
after  as  a  Scottish  national  institution.     In  1885 
he   burst   into   the   veStry   of  LyndhurSt   Road 

151 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

Church,  HampStead,  one  Sunday,  and  kissed  Dr. 
Horton  on  both  cheeks  in  token  of  his  apprecia- 
tion of  that  gendeman's  pulpit  gifts.     In  1888 
he  was  able  to  record  "  a  very  warm  friendly 
time   with    Browning,    who    loves    me    like    a 
brother  ",  and  a  party  at  Lord  Rosebery's  town 
house  where,   at  the  express   request  of  Mrs. 
Gladstone,  he  obliged  the  company  with  "  The 
Bonnie  House  o'  Airlie  "  so  as  to  Stop  the  G.O.M. 
from  discoursing  on  French  novels  and  Popery 
— "  both  unlovely  subjeds  ".     A  day  or  two 
later  he  admired  in  the  afternoon  a  "  mo§l  wonder- 
ful thunder-roll  of  piano  force  from  a  Polish 
girl  named  Natalie  Janotha  "  that  he  heard  at 
Mary  Anderson's,  and  in  the  evening  Wilson 
Barrett's  performance  in  Ben-my-chree^  as  to  which 
we  have  Sir  Hall  Caine's  word  for  it  that  the 
translator    of    Aeschylus    "  wept    like    a    little 
chUd  ". 

Blackie's  appearance  was  not  so  much  dis- 
tinguished as  diStiQdtive,  and  he  was  always  at 
pains  to  make  it  more  so  by  freakish  experi- 
ments in  dress.  The  tartan  breeks  of  his  earlier 
days  have  been  mentioned,  and  there  was  also 
for  a  short  time  a  singxilar  wig  that  aroused  the 
mirth  of  the  Edinburgh  Students.  The  outdoor 
costume  he  finally  adopted,  and  wore  for  more 
than  thirty  years,  consisted  of  a  black  sombrero, 
a  plaid  draped  Highland  fashion  over  his  frock- 
coat,  and  a  Stout  and  rustic  walking-Stick — a 
combination  no  doubt  intended  to  suggest  the 

152 


JOHN     STUART     BLACKIE 

garb  of  old  Gaul,  the  fire  of  old  Rome  and  the 
Wusenschaftlichkeit  of  Gottingen  in  the  'thirties. 
But  whatever  the  intention,  it  was  exceedingly 
becoming  to  a  lively  old  man  with  beautiful 
features  and  feathery  white  hair.  Indoors  he 
Still  wore  his  sombrero  to  shield  his  eyes  while 
working,  but  exchanged  his  frock-coat  and  plaid 
for  a  brown  dressing-gown  trimmed  with  red. 
In  this  guise  he  received  his  friends,  who,  if  they 
did  not  mind  exhortations,  puns,  guffaws,  jingles, 
kisses,  punches  in  the  ribs  and  slaps  on  the 
back,  enjoyed  themselves  wonderfully.  In  any 
case,  Mrs.  Blackie  would  be  there  to  relieve  the 
situation.  Eliza  Wyld — ^who  had  insisted  upon 
marrying  her  queer  cousin  in  1842,  not  exa6Hy 
malgre  lui  but  rather  to  his  surprise — ^was  her 
husband's  antitype,  being  tall,  elegant  in  all  her 
ways,  tad:ful,  sparing  of  words  and  a  confirmed 
hypochondriac.  She  ruled  him  Stri6Hy  and  bore 
him  no  children,  both  of  which  aifli6tions  he 
suffered  cheerfully.  After  all,  it  was  something 
to  be  the  husband  of  one  of  the  Wyld  girls  of 
GilSton — "  the  five  finest  female  figures  in  Fife  ", 
as  he  liked  to  call  them.  As  a  brother-in-law 
and  as  an  uncle  he  was  greatly  beloved,  and  he 
made  the  moSt  affeftionate,  the  moSt  galant  of 
husbands. 

This  excellent  man,  who  loved  all  mankind 
except  the  Pope  and  Oxford  and  Cambridge 
Dons,  died  on  March  2,  1895,  in  his  eighty-sixth 
year.     All  his  life  he  had  been  a  bit  of  a  mounte- 

153 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

bank,  and  in  his  old  age  he  nearly  became  a  bore. 
But  when  he  was  borne  to  his  grave  in  the  Dean 
Cemetery  all  Scotland  mourned,  and  well  it  might, 
for  he  had  deserved  well  of  his  country.  His 
specific  enthusiasms — university  reform,  Scottish 
nationalism  and  so  forth — were  of  little  account. 
His  real  service  was  to  provide  his  generation  of 
Scotsmen  with  what  William  James  calls  the 
"  moral  holiday  ".     Poor  souls,  they  needed  it. 


154 


KEIR  HARDIE 

It  is  said  that  the  Scots  are  a  politically  minded 
race,  but  the  Statement  requires  some  qualifica- 
tion. One  cannot,  of  course,  escape  the  remark- 
able faft  that  of  the  eleven  men  who  have  held 
the  office  of  Prime  Minister  during  the  pa§t  fifty 
years,  six  have  borne  typical  Scottish  names  and 
have  been  of  more  or  less  pure  Scottish  descent, 
and  that  generally  a  large  and  quite  disproportion- 
ate number  of  Scotsmen  have  been  prominent  in 
the  political  life  of  the  country.  But  that  proves 
no  more  than  that  the  Scots  have  a  great  inclina- 
tion and  aptitude  for  English  party  politics, 
greater,  it  may  even  be,  than  that  of  the  EngUsh 
themselves.  It  does  not  prove  that  they  are 
poUtically  minded  in  the  creative  sense.  They 
may  be,  but  the  course  of  history  has  not  allowed 
them  to  show  it.  As  things  are,  the  Scotsman 
who  follows  a  political  career  mu§t  proceed  along 
the  lines  prescribed  by  English  convention  and 
accept  whatever  situation  the  English  genius 
may  create,  limitations  with  which  as  a  rule 
he  is  perfedtly  content.  There  is  therefore  no 
specifically  Scottish  content  in  his  public  life. 

155 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

He  does  nothing  that  could  not  equally  well  be 
done  by  a  Welshman  or  a  Jew,  or  for  that  matter 
an  Englishman.  To  this  rule  there  has  been 
only  one  exception.  Keir  Hardie  made  the 
one  specifically  Scottish  contribution  to  British 
politics,  and  it  is  worth  while  noting  that  it 
consisted  primarily  of  the  de§trud;ion  of  a 
peculiarly  English  institution,  namely,  the  Liberal 
party.  Of  course,  his  ostensible  ground  of 
attack  was  the  "  capitalist  "  charader  of  Liberal- 
ism, but  as  Keir  Hardie  was  never  able  to 
distinguish  clearly  between  "  capitalist "  and 
"  English  ",  that  hardly  signifies. 

In  an  oracular  aside  in  Endymion  Disraeli 
hinted  that  when  in  the  fullness  of  time  Labour 
threw  off  the  yoke  of  the  Whigs,  the  movement 
of  revolt  would  originate  in  the  industrial  WeSt 
of  Scodand.  Adhially  the  firSt  independent 
Labour  member  of  ParHament  was  returned  by 
a  Metropolitan  constituency,  and  it  was  in  the 
North  of  England  that  the  movement  firSt 
manifested  itself  as  a  serious  political  force. 
The  West  of  Scotland,  though  now  fervid  enough, 
was  the  laggard  of  the  movement,  and  Paisley, 
which  Disraeli  specified  as  the  moSt  likely  focus 
of  the  new  spirit,  was  in  fa6t  the  laSt  of  the 
constituencies  in  the  area  to  abandon  its  tradition 
of  Liberalism.  But  these  appearances  are  mis- 
leading. Disraeli's  predidion  was  substantially 
right  even  to  the  intuition  that  the  movement 
would  originate  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Glasgow 
156 


KEIRHARDIE 

rather  than  in  Glasgow  itself.  Keir  Hardie, 
founder  of  the  Labour  party,  was  a  native  of  the 
Airdrie  diStrift.  It  was  as  a  local  agitator  that 
he  conceived  his  projed  and  took  the  fir§t  Steps 
to  realise  it.  The  fa£t  would  have  no  significance 
if  Hardie  had  been  an  exceptional  man,  for  genius 
does  not  take  much  account  of  localities.  But 
Hardie  was  not  an  exceptional  man.  He  was, 
despite  his  own  artless  opinion  to  the  contrary, 
a  very  ordinary  man.  Even  his  be§t  gifts  were 
in  no  way  distinguished.  In  general  intelligence 
and  capacity  for  affairs  he  was  definitely  below 
the  average  of  the  Labour  politicians  of  to-day, 
and  that  is  not  inordinately  high.  His  political 
value  consisted  mainly  in  the  fad  that  he  was  a 
typical  produdiof  his  diStrift,and  as  such  peculiarly 
fitted  to  be  the  initial  agent  in  the  deStruftion  of 
the  Liberal  party.  To  describe  him  as  the  leader 
of  the  Labour  revolt  againSt  Liberalism  would  be 
to  attribute  to  him  personal  qualities  that  he  did 
not  possess.  It  would  be  more  proper  to  say 
that  he  was  the  inevitable  "  incident "  upon 
which  the  revolt  broke  out. 

The  industrial  population  of  the  Clyde  valley, 
in  so  far  as  it  is  not  Irish,  consists  largely  of  the 
descendants  of  West  Highland  immigrants,  people 
of  the  short,  dark,  Hebridean  race.  They  are 
intelligent  and  expressive,  but  volatile,  deficient 
in  the  individual  virtues,  and  highly  susceptible 
to  mass  emotions.  Such  are  the  overwhelming 
majority  of  the  Scottish  inhabitants  of  Greater 

157 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

Glasgow.  But  when  one  leaves  the  riverside 
and  penetrates  landward  of  Glasgow  into  the 
black  country  that  lies  to  the  south  and  ea§t, 
there  is  a  difference.  The  Irish  and  the  We§t 
Highlanders  are  there  in  their  tens  of  thousands, 
but  they  have  not  submerged  the  original  popu- 
lation, who  belong  to  a  tougher  race  whose 
resistive  capacity  has  more  than  once  changed 
the  course  of  Scottish  history.  In  the  south  one 
is  in  the  Wallace  country,  the  cradle  of  Scottish 
nationalism ;  the  ea§t  was  the  Stronghold  of  the 
Covenanters.  Of  the  native  Stock  of  the  latter 
district  something  has  already  been  said  in  con- 
nexion with  the  Rev.  James  Begg.^  They  are, 
in  the  Scots  phrase,  essentially  "  thrawn  folk  ". 
They  are,  as  Scotsmen  go,  rather  slow-witted  and 
of  a  perverse  and  fanatical  temper.  Their  moSt 
respedable  chara6teriStics  are  tenacity,  courage, 
and  a  surly  kind  of  honeSty. 

Hardie*s  mother,  Mary  Keir,  came  of  this 
uncompromising  Stock.  In  Glasgow,  where  she 
was  in  domestic  service,  she  met  her  husband, 
David  Hardie,  a  Grangemouth  man,  who  had 
migrated  to  Glasgow  and  who  sometimes  went 
to  sea  as  a  ship's  carpenter  and  sometimes 
worked  ashore  as  a  shipwright.  Mary  Keir  was 
the  dominant  partner  from  the  outset.  Upon 
marriage  David  Hardie  was  agreeable  to  leave 
the  riverside,  on  which  his  livelihood  had  hitherto 
depended,  and  migrate  to  his  wife's  home  in  the 

^  Vide  pa.gc  "J I. 
158 


KEIR     HARDIE 


Lanarkshire  coalfield.  Their  fir§t  child,  James 
Keir,  was  born  at  the  mining  village  of  Leg- 
brannock  near  Airdrie  on  August  15,  1856. 

The  change  of  surroxmdings  was  not  a  lucky 
one,  and  in  the  course  of  the  'sixties  David 
Hardie,  having  got  a  good  quiverful  without 
receiving  any  of  the  corresponding  blessings, 
returned  to  Glasgow  to  seek  employment  in  the 
yards.  As  work  was  hard  to  get  and  harder  Still 
to  keep,  the  life  of  the  Hardie  family  in  Glasgow 
presented  all  the  usual  features  of  that  painful 
degree  of  industrial  poverty  which  verges  upon 
but  is  never  suffered  to  lapse  into  abjed  misery. 
James,  of  course,  at  an  early  age  had  to  go  out 
to  work  as  an  errand  boy.  There  is  a  Dickensian 
Story  of  one  of  his  employers,  a  prosperous  and 
godly  baker,  who  held  the  accepted  view — having 
no  doubt  some  hard  experience  to  back  it — ^that 
all  errand  boys  were  sons  of  Belial.  One  morn- 
ing, owing  to  sickness  in  the  home,  young  Jamie 
Hardie  arrived  at  the  shop  late  and  breakfaStless. 
He  was  at  once  haled  to  his  master's  parlour — 
for  the  good  man  lived  above  the  shop — to  be 
admonished.  The  family  had  juSt  sat  down  to 
breakfast,  and  the  smell  of  eggs  and  bacon  and 
*'  baps  " — most  delicious  and  indigestible  triumph 
of  Scotch  bakership — afresh  and  fragrant  from 
the  oven  pierced  the  very  soul  of  the  hungry  lad. 
But  through  the  sweet  savours  came  the  acrid 
voice  of  his  maSter.  "  Ay,  here  ye  come  at  lang 
last.     A  thocht  ye'd  maybe  forgot  us.     A'm  sure 

159 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

we're  muckle  obleeged  to  yer  lordship.  But 
we're  daein*  fine,  thenk  ye.  Mphm.  And  we 
could  dae  fine  if  we  niver  saw  ye  again.  .  .  . 
Haud  yer  tongue !  Wid  ye  Stan'  there  and  tell 
me  lees  tae  ma  face  ?  A  ken  yous  and  the  likes 
o'  yous — ^fine  A  ken  ye.  Ye're  hert  lazy,  that's 
whit  ye  are.  Awa'  tae  yer  wark  and  thank  yer 
Maker  ye  hae  wark  tae  gang  tae.  There's  no 
mony  wid  gie  ye  the  chance.  But  min'  ye,  the 
next  time  ye're  a  meenute  behind,  it's  the  kick 
for  you,  ma  mannie,  and  nae  pey.  .  .  .  The 
impident  wee  keelie  !  " 

Of  course  Jamie  Hardie  offended  again  before 
very  long  and  lo§t  his  job  and  a  week's  wages. 
His  master  was  a  man  of  his  word,  whom  no  tears 
or  entreaties  could  move  in  a  matter  of  "  prin- 
ciple "  to  the  extent  of  a  hair's  breadth,  much 
less  to  the  extent  of  four  shillings  and  sixpence. 
There  is  no  occasion  to  blame  him,  or  to  call 
the  religious  professions  we  are  told  he  made 
hypocrisy.  He  was  simply  working  according 
to  a  rule  of  thumb  which  thousands  of  quite 
decent  men,  with  their  living  to  get,  feel  they 
dare  not  disobey  in  any  circumstances.  But  the 
viftims  cannot  be  expe6i:ed  to  see  it  in  that  light. 
Incidents  hke  Jamie's  dismissal  from  the  baker's 
shop  were  painfully  familiar  to  his  parents. 
David  Hardie  brooded  over  them,  took  to 
reading  Tom  Paine  and  Bradlaugh  and  became 
a  cantankerous  freethinker.  Mary  Hardie  also 
had  her  thoughts  while  at  her  endless  toil.    She 

i6o 


KEIR     HARDIE 

had  no  use  for  her  husband's  feckless  con- 
tentiousness on  the  subjeft,  but  she  shared  his 
views  to  the  extent  of  renouncing  formal 
religion — a  very  remarkable  thing  in  a  well- 
doing working  woman  of  her  generation  and 
upbringing.  Henceforward  no  minister,  mission- 
ary, elder  or  other  emissary  of  orthodoxy  dared 
cross  the  Hardie  threshold. 

At  last  David  Hardie,  finding  it  impossible  to 
get  ^eady  employment  in  the  yards,  went  to  sea 
again,  and  his  family  went  back  to  the  Airdrie 
diStrift.  The  boys  got  employment  in  the  pits. 
Graduating  from  pony-driver  to  coal-hewer, 
James  worked  as  a  miner  through  the  bad  years 
that  fell  upon  the  coal  industry  in  the  later 
'seventies.  Wages,  which  had  been  grotesquely 
inflated  during  the  "  boom  "  that  followed  the 
Franco -Prussian  war,  were  now  depressed  to 
a  Starvation  level,  and  there  was  imreSt  and 
agitation  in  every  coalfield.  In  Lanarkshire 
conditions  were  peculiarly  bad.  The  men  were 
powerless  for  lack  of  organisation,  for  their 
union  had  collapsed  entirely  under  the  financial 
Stress.  The  coal-owners  had  no  wish  to  see  it 
revived.  Pit  managers  kept  their  eyes  and  ears 
open,  and  weeded  out  without  mercy  any  man 
who  showed  speech-making  proclivities.  Young 
Keir  Hardie  soon  made  himself  obnoxious  in 
this  respeft,  with  the  result  that  one  morning, 
when  he  and  his  brothers  were  about  to  descend, 
they  were  ordered  out  of  the  cage  with  the 

i6i  M 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

intimation  that  the  management  would  have 
"  nae  damned  Hardies  in  the  pit ".  It  proved 
to  be  a  short-sighted  piece  of  viftimisation, 
for  it  turned  Hardie  into  a  professional  agitator. 
He  never  worked  as  a  miner  again.  Removing 
to  Cadzow,  he  set  up  in  a  very  small  way  as 
a  tobacconist  and  newsagent.  Thanks  to  his 
mother's  constant  urgings  he  had  educated  him- 
self fairly  well  for  a  miner  of  those  days  and  had 
learned  shorthand.  He  was  thus  able  to  add 
slightly  to  his  income  by  afting  as  Coatbridge 
and  Airdrie  correspondent  to  the  Glasgow  Weekly 
Mail.  The  few  shillings  that  he  got  weekly  by 
his  journalistic  work  were  the  leaSt  part  of  its 
importance  to  him.  The  Weekly  Mail  belonged 
to  the  late  Sir  Charles  Cameron,  then  and  for 
many  years  afterwards  one  of  the  Glasgow 
Liberal  members  of  Parliament.  It  was  a  Stoutly 
Radical  organ,  closely  packed  with  crime  and 
local  news  and  enjoying  an  immense  circulation 
among  the  working  classes  of  the  WeSt.  Sabba- 
tarian Scodand  not  permitting  of  that  evil  thing 
a  "  Sunday "  paper,  this  purveyor  of  informa- 
tion and  sensation  was  religiously  published  on 
Saturday,  but  it  was  on  the  Sunday  that  the 
working  man  found  time  to  read  it  as  he 
lay  in  bed — ^whence  it  acquired  its  nickname 
of  "  The  Working  Man's  Bible  ".  The  work- 
ing man  himself  called  it  simply  the  "  bluidy 
Mair. 

In  a  big  industrial  centre  like   Coatbridge, 
162 


KEIR     HARDIE 

therefore,  the  local  correspondent  of  the  Weekly 
Mail  W2,s  a  man  of  some  consequence  in  working- 
class  estimation.  And  though  it  was  journalism 
of  the  humblest  order,  it  taught  Hardie  something 
of  the  art  of  news-gathering  and  gave  him 
facility  with  his  pen.  He  had  a  real  aptitude  for 
work  of  the  kind,  and  in  the  propaganda  journal- 
ism that  he  later  pursued  to  the  end  of  his  life, 
though  he  never  wrote  anything  worth  remember- 
ing, he  was  always  competent,  readable,  even 
lively. 

It  is  well  to  be  quite  clear  about  Keir  Hardie's 
^ate  of  mind  at  this  point  in  his  career,  for  only 
too  easily  false  deductions  may  be  made  from 
the  domestic  circumftances  of  his  childhood. 
His  parents'  poverty  and  their  anti  -  religious 
opinions  seem  to  be  perfeft  conditions  for  the 
manufafture  of  a  Socialist  pioneer.  But  in  his 
early  days  as  a  trade  union  official  Keir  Hardie 
was  not  a  Socialist.  His  bitter  experiences  in 
Glasgow,  where  the  grim  spedtre  of  unemploy- 
ment conStandy  brooded  over  the  home,  had  not 
filled  his  young  mind  with  the  Stern  resolve  to 
discover  the  cause  of  it  all.  As  a  pit  worker  he 
had  not  spent  his  scanty  leisure  poring  over  Marx 
and  learning  all  about  capitalism,  surplus  value, 
over-produftion  and  the  materialist  interpreta- 
tion of  history.  When  afterwards  he  did  turn 
Socialist  his  text-books  were  News  from  Nowhere, 
Unto  this  Laff,  and  the  poems  of  Robert  Bums. 
He  may  in  later  years  have  dipped  into  Das 

163 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

Kapital  as  a  professing  Chriftian  dips  into  the 
Bible ;  but  as  for  understanding  it,  that  was  a 
feat  beyond  his  intelleftual  Strength,  and  there 
is  no  reason  to  beHeve  that  he  ever  attempted  it. 
Keir  Hardie  was  fond  of  books — a  trait  that  he 
inherited  from  his  mother — but  his  preferences, 
though  eminently  respeftable,  ran  in  the  direction 
of  "  soft  "  reading — romantic  poetry,  romantic 
history  and  romantic  economics. 

Also,  be  it  noted,  he  read  the  Bible — ^not  to 
get  propaganda  out  of  it,  but  for  his  soul's  health. 
For  the  curious  fad  is  that,  in  spite  of  his  parents' 
scepticism,  he  lived  and  died  a  devout  believer. 
When  he  was  seventeen  the  Moody  and  Sankey 
Mission  arrived,  evoking  an  outburst  of  religious 
enthusiasm  in  the  WeSt  of  Scodand,  especially 
among  young  men,  that  endured  at  fever  heat 
for  several  years.  In  due  course  Keir  Hardie 
succumbed  to  the  general  influence  and  became 
"  converted  ".  His  choice  of  a  denominational 
connexion — ^for  of  course  he  had  none  through 
his  parents — ^was  interesting  and  significant.  He 
became  a  Morisonian.  This  sefl  (now  merged 
in  the  Congregational  Union  of  Scodand)  had 
been  founded  early  in  the  'forties  by  the  Rev. 
James  Morison,  a  young  man  of  considerable 
talent  and  learning  and  moSt  lovable  personality, 
who  was  deposed  from  the  ministry  of  the 
Secession  Church  for  preaching  the  Gospel  in  a 
fashion  that  was  deemed  to  be  Arminian,  and 
therefore  heretical  according  to  the  Westminster 

164 


KEIR     HARDIE 

Confession  of  Faith.  From  small  beginnings  the 
Evangelical  Union  (as  it  was  officially  called) 
grew  and  flourished  in  a  modest  way  chiefly  in 
the  We§t  of  Scotland.  By  orthodox  Presby- 
terians it  was  regarded  with  benevolent  contempt. 
Morisonians  were  spoken  of  with  a  slight  pursing 
of  the  lips  as  "  moral  "  and  "  worthy  "  people, 
the  implied  reservation  being  that  the  spiritual 
condition  of  those  who  repudiated  the  doftrine 
of  eledtion  and  predestination  was  more  than 
questionable,  no  matter  how  Christian  might 
appear  their  behaviour.  This  attitude  of  superior 
toleration  was  preserved  by  those  within  the  fold 
even  when  Arminianism  had  become  a  common- 
place of  the  Presbyterian  pulpit,  the  reason  being 
that  at  bottom  it  was  not  dodbrinal  at  all  but 
social  and  traditional.  The  Morisonians  were 
mostly  humble  folk,  and  they  had  abandoned  the 
Presbyterian  order  for  "  independency  ",  a  thing 
that,  according  to  Scottish  Standards,  is  peculiarly 
deplorable  inasmuch  as,  unlike  prelacy,  it  is 
praftised  by  people  who  ought  to  know  better. 
Keir  Hardie's  reasons  for  joining  the  sed:  are 
obvious  enough.  For  one  thing  he  was  con- 
stitutionally a  dissenter.  He  liked  being  in  a 
minority,  and  the  smaller  the  minority  the  better 
he  liked  it.  For  another  thing,  though  he  had 
given  up  his  parents'  unbelief,  the  sentiment 
of  his  upbringing  remained  in  the  form  of  an 
antipathy  to  Presbyterianism  as  the  religion  of 
the  "  bosses  ",  which  it  undoubtedly  was.     But 

165 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

the  main  reason  was  that  Hardie  was  a  very 
simple,  sincere  and  devout  soul.  He  had  been 
"  saved  "  on  the  basis  of  God's  free  grace  to 
all  mankind  through  the  death  of  Christ,  and 
naturally  he  preferred  to  be  associated  with  those 
who  gave  that  dodtrine  the  central  place  in  their 
creed  and  were  not,  like  Presbyterians,  obliged 
to  apologise  for  mentioning  it.  As  a  corollary 
to  his  church  connection  he  became  a  Good 
Templar,  a  zealous  advocacy  of  total  abstinence 
from  liquor  being  regarded  as  one  of  the  essential 
activities  of  a  redeemed  soul. 

It  is  important  to  understand  the  character  of 
Keir  Hardie*s  reHgious  beliefs,  for  they  are  the 
clue  to  the  origins  of  his  political  creed.  Gener- 
ally speaking  it  may  be  said  that  the  Moody  and 
Sankey  revival  was  bad  for  the  social  conscience 
in  the  industrial  WeSt.  It  gave  the  middle 
classes,  who  were  powerfully  affefted  by  it,  a 
very  religious  excuse  for  ignoring  the  problem 
of  industrial  poverty  in  the  sense  of  applying 
their  intelligence  to  it,  though  there  was  no  lack 
of  fussy  and  Sterile  philanthropy.  For  if  you 
really  believe  that  those  who  are  not  "  saved  " 
will  inevitably  go  to  a  ghaStly  and  eternal  doom, 
and  if  at  the  same  time  you  believe  that  salvation 
is  to  be  had  for  the  asking,  it  becomes  your 
supreme  duty  to  see  that  as  many  as  possible  of 
your  fellow-men  are  made  aware  of  the  Almighty's 
handsome  offer.  Nothing  else  will  matter  much 
by  the  side  of  this  fatal  opportunity.     You  wUl 

i66 


KEIR     HARDIE 


not  be  moved  by  the  nakedness  and  hunger  of 
your  neighbour  except  in  so  far  as  these,  being 
presumptive  evidence  of  sin,  prompt  you  to 
inquire  into  the  §tate  of  his  soul.  You  will  give 
him  an  old  suit  of  clothes  and  a  plain  but  whole- 
some meal,  not  primarily  because  his  body  is 
cold  and  hungry,  but  because  if  you  don't  he 
will  probably  go  away  and  sin  some  more, 
possibly  to  his  soul's  damnation.  True,  you  may 
deplore  his  poverty,  but  it  will  not  suggest  to 
you  any  general  problem  or  self-que§tioning. 
You  will  reason  quite  correftly — especially  if 
your  logic  is  supported  by  a  comfortable  income 
— ^that  poverty  at  the  worSt  is  only  a  temporary 
inconvenience,  of  no  great  consequence  when 
compared  with  the  unalterable  everlasting  issue 
of  sin  and  salvation.  This  was  the  perfectly 
respedable  (as  it  then  seemed)  attitude  of  many 
wealthy  Glasgow  men,  who  spent  large  sums 
of  money  and  did  not  spare  themselves  great 
personal  inconvenience  in  order  that  the  poor 
might  have  the  Gospel  preached  to  them.  But 
one  who  was  himself  a  poor  man,  especially  one 
in  Keir  Hardie's  position,  was  bound  to  extraft 
a  very  different  philosophy  from  the  dodrine  of 
free  salvation.  He  was  bound  to  interpret  the 
temporal  by  analogy  with  the  eternal.  If  it  were 
true,  as  the  CalviniSts  taught,  that  Christ  died 
only  for  the  eleft,  inequality  and  privilege  were 
inherent  in  the  order  of  Divine  Providence,  and 
man  muSt  accept  his  de^iny  here  and  hereafter, 

167 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

world  without  end,  Amen.  But  if  the  Calvini§ts 
were  wrong,  if,  as  Keir  Hardie  with  all  the 
earne^ness  of  his  earnest  nature  believed,  Christ 
died  for  the  whole  of  Adam*s  race,  the  case  for 
privilege  and  inequality  disappeared.  For  if  God 
has  given  His  Eternal  Gift  to  the  many,  why 
should  it  be  supposed  that  He  has  reserved  His 
temporal  blessings  for  the  few  ? 

That  Keir  Hardie  reasoned  out  his  position 
so  ab^traftly  and  briefly  is  improbable  ;  but  there 
is  no  doubt  that  some  such  naive  redu^io  ad 
absurdum  represents  the  process  by  which  he 
gradually  reached  the  conclusion  that  men  have 
their  material  as  well  as  their  spiritual  salvation 
within  their  power,  and  that  nothing  Stands 
between  them  and  the  enjoyment  of  God's 
mercies  in  either  kind  but  their  own  perverse 
will  to  perdition.  Conversion  is  indicated  in 
both  cases.  Any  doubts  Hardie  may  have  had 
about  the  legitimacy  of  the  conclusion  were 
removed  by  Ruskin.  It  is  interesting  to  note  in 
passing  that  a  young  Free  Church  probationer, 
Henry  Drummond,  who  also  accepted  with  his 
whole  heart  the  neo-evangelical  theology  and 
who  was  engaged  in  home  mission  work  in 
Glasgow  when  Keir  Hardie  was  organising 
miners  in  Lanarkshire,  found  his  thought  moving 
in  precisely  the  opposite  diredlion — ^not  deducing 
an  earthly  paradise  from  his  faith,  but  building 
up  his  Heaven  by  induction  from  earthly  analogies 
of  doubtful  charafter.     It  was  a  case  of  two 

i68 


KEIR     HARDIE 

points  careering  round  a  circle  in  reverse  ways. 

Ultimately  they  coincided.     Drummond  before 

he  died  found  himself  committed  to  the  Socialist 

position.     Some  years  elapsed  before  Hardie*s 

views  crystallised  sufficiently  to  enable  him  to 

proclaim  himself  a  Socialist,  and  even  then  they 

did  not  seem  to  him  to  constitute  any  reason  for 

ceasing  to  describe  himself  as  a  Radical  supporter 

of  the  Liberal  party.     The  break  with  Liberalism, 

when  it  did  come,  was  due  to  purely  personal 

considerations  that  developed  in  the  later  'eighties. 

During  the  ten  years  that  intervened,  the 

name  of  Keir  Hardie  became  familiar  to  the 

public.     Shortly  after  he  settled  at  Cadzow,  the 

coal-owners  announced  a  further  redudion  of 

wages.     The    miners    decided   that   they   muSt 

fight,  and  Hardie,  whose  little  shop  had  become 

tlie  focus  of  the  agitation  in  Lanarkshire,  was 

appointed  agent.     The  Stoppage  that  followed 

did  not  last  long.     The  men  were  beaten.     But 

it  was  agreed  that  Hardie  had  done  his  work  well, 

and  the  reputation  he  had  acquired  brought  him 

an  invitation  from  the  Ayrshire  miners  which 

induced  him  to  leave  Cadzow  for  Old  Cumnock, 

the  village  that  was  his  home  for  the  reSt  of  his 

life.     His   migration   to   Ayrshire   was    quickly 

signalised  by  the  "tattie  Strike"  of  1881,  so 

called  because  the  Strikers,  having  no  union  and 

no  funds,  had  to  subsist  on  potatoes  supplied 

by   the   charity   of  the   local   shopkeepers   and 

farmers.     On   these   scanty   rations,   plentifully 

169 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

seasoned  with  the  earnest  and  sometimes  im- 
pressive exhortations  of  their  leader,  they  Stuck  it 
out  for  ten  weeks.  A  glorious  August  morning 
and  the  Strains  of  a  brass  band  had  heartened 
them  for  the  Struggle,  and  "  the  smiling  of 
fortune  beguiling  "  in  the  guise  of  an  exception- 
ally fine  autumn  encouraged  them  to  continue  it. 
But  the  Stars  were  againSt  them.  A  prolonged 
diet  of  potatoes  is  a  poor  provision  againSt  a 
Scotch  November,  and  with  the  approach  of 
winter  the  Strike  collapsed.  Hardly  had  the  pits 
been  restarted  when  a  sudden  improvement  in 
trade  set  in  which  caused  the  owners  to  raise 
wages.  The  men  were  jubilant.  It  was  no  use 
telling  them  that  they  were  sharing  in  the  general 
prosperity  of  the  industry.  They  were  convinced 
that  the  State  of  trade  had  nothing  to  do  with  it : 
Keir  Hardie  and  the  Strike  had  done  it  by  putting 
the  fear  of  the  Lord  into  the  hearts  of  the  bosses. 
The  task  of  organising  a  union,  therefore,  which 
occupied  the  agent  for  the  next  few  years,  was 
begun  imder  happy  auspices. 

How  Hardie  lived  during  his  early  days  in 
Ayrshire  is  a  myStery  which  even  his  official 
biographer  has  been  unable  to  fathom.  Frugal 
and  self-denying  as  he  was,  it  is  difficult  to 
conceive  how  he  and  his  wife — ^for  he  married  on 
settling  at  Old  Cumnock — could  subsist  on  the 
small  and  irregular  payments  he  got  as  miners' 
agent.  After  a  year  or  two,  however,  his  position 
improved.     He  became  fa6i:otum  to  the  Cumnock 

170 


KEIR     HARDIE 

News,  and  that  led  to  a  connexion  with  its  parent 
newspaper,  the  Ardrossan  Herald,  a  Liberal  organ 
of  considerable  influence  in  North  Ayrshire. 
With  the  full  approval  of  his  employer,  an 
enthusiastic  Gladftonian,  he  took  an  adive  part 
in  local  Radical  politics.  By  the  end  of  the  year 
1886  Mr.  Keir  Hardie  felt  justified  in  taking  him- 
self seriously.  He  was  making  a  modest  but 
Steady  income  as  a  journalist,  and  he  and  his 
employer  were  on  terms  of  mutual  eSteem.  He 
was  known  as  an  eameSt  and  godly  young  married 
man  with  a  growing  family.  His  position  as  a 
Labour  leader  was  considerable.  He  was  not 
only  secretary  to  the  Ayrshire  Miners*  Union, 
but  secretary  to  the  inchoate  Scottish  Miners' 
Federation.  In  the  Cumnock  diStrid  he  had 
become  a  local  hero. 

Becoming  a  hero,  even  a  local  one,  involves 
a  spiritual  change.  One  sees  things  in  a  light 
not  vouchsafed  in  pre-heroic  days.  Notions  that 
for  long  have  maintained  a  shadowy  and  question- 
able existence  as  dreams  and  grumbles  suddenly 
acquire  a  solid  and  respedable  Standing  in  one's 
scheme  of  life.  So  it  was  with  Keir  Hardie. 
The  Reform  Aft  of  1885  had  inspired  him  with 
a  dream  about  the  political  Status  of  the  working 
classes,  and  also  with  a  grumble  about  the  Liberal 
party.  The  industrial  workers,  being  now  en- 
franchised in  the  counties  as  well  as  in  the 
boroughs,  were  in  a  position  to  dominate  national 
politics,  if  only  they  would  put  forth  their  Strength 

171 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

as  the  middle  classes  had  done  after  1832  with 
results  very  beneficial  to  their  own  interests. 
Now  it  was  the  working  classes'  turn.  To  vote 
was  not  enough :  they  mu§t  get  into  Parliament 
as  well.  It  was  true  that  of  recent  years  the 
Liberal  party  in  the  House  of  Commons  had 
included  a  number  of  "  Labour  "  Radicals  like 
George  Odger,  Thomas  Burt,  Henry  BroadhurSt 
and  Alexander  Macdonald,  but  the  party  authori- 
ties were  inclined  to  be  ftingy  in  the  matter  of 
Labour  representation  and  would  give  away  no 
more  than  they  could  help.  Scotland  had  no 
share  in  the  meagre  allowance.  Even  Macdonald, 
a  Lanarkshire  miner  from  Keir  Hardie's  own 
district:,  had  sat  for  an  English  borough.  In 
Keir  Hardie's  view,  what  the  Liberal  party  needed 
was  a  Radical  "  revival  ",  and,  having  regard  to 
his  local  success  as  a  Labour  leader,  he  saw  no 
reason  why  he  should  not  Start  it  himself,  with 
Ruskinian  socialism  as  the  special  evangel  of  the 
movement.  At  the  moment  it  happened  that 
a  real  Liberal  candidate  was  wanted  for  North 
Ayrshire.  The  sitting  member,  the  Hon.  H.  F. 
Eliot,  who  had  been  elected  as  a  Liberal  in  1885, 
had  gone  Unionist,  and  the  diStrafted  condition 
of  the  party  had  operated  to  give  him  an  un- 
opposed return  in  1886.  But  a  GladStonian 
candidate  was  to  be  put  in  the  field  at  the  next 
ele6tion.  In  these  circumstances  the  name  of 
Mr.  James  Keir  Hardie,  journalist,  of  Old 
Cumnock,  was  put  before  the  Liberal  Association 

172 


KEIR     HARDIE 

with  a  demand  that  he  should  be  adopted  as  their 
candidate.  The  proposal  was  not  well  received. 
It  is  the  quality  of  Englishmen  that  they  can 
be  serious  without  being  unseasonable.  They 
have  a  sense  of  objedive  situation  and  can  bide 
their  time.  Among  Scotsmen  it  is  a  compara- 
tively rare  gift — ^rare  enough,  indeed,  to  make  it 
a  constant  source  of  wonder  how  they  ever 
acquired  their  reputation  for  shrewdness.^  Like 
the  Frenchman,  the  Scot  when  he  is  very  much 
in  earnest  about  anything  sees  it  sub  specie  aeter- 
nitatis,  sheathed  in  timeless  logic,  supreme  over 
all  temporal  considerations,  and  any  divergence 
from  his  view  on  the  part  of  other  people  is  put 
down,  not  to  lack  of  appreciation — ^for  that  is 
inconceivable — but  to  interested  motives.  He 
becomes  resentful,  querulous,  even  vindictive. 
This  unhappy  temper  has  been  the  bane  of 
Scottish  ecclesiastical  politics.  JuSt  a  little 
common  sense  would  have  told  Keir  Hardie 
that  he  had  chosen  the  worSt  possible  moment 
for  pressing  his  claims.  The  Liberal  party, 
Staggering  under  the  weight  of  an  Irish  policy 
that  threatened  to  crush  it,  was  not  likely  to 
listen  to  a  proposal  that  it  should  carry  a  little 
Labour  socialism  as  well.  Nor  was  the  mood 
of  "  Labour  "  itself  favourable,  for  the  working 
classes  were  inflamed  by  sedarian  passion,  and 
in  the  WeSt  of  Scotland  in  particular  had  been 

^  An  exception  mu§t  be  made  in  favour  of  the  Aberdonian,  whose 
psychology  in  this  as  in  other  respefts  is  by  far  the  moSl  "  English  " 
in  Scotland. 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

Stampeded  by  the  Unionist  cry  of  "  Home  Rule 
means  Rome  rule  ". 

To  all  such  considerations  Hardie  was  blind, 
and  he  had  the  additional  afflidion  of  a  very 
aggressive  "  inferiority  complex  ".  His  failure 
to  get  the  Liberal  nomination  suggested  to  him 
nothing  but  a  middle-class  objeftion  to  working 
men  in  Parliament,  and  the  fad:  that  the  person 
preferred  to  him  was  an  affluent  baronet  was  not 
calculated  to  modify  his  view  or  improve  his 
temper.  He  was  put  into  that  dire  frame  of 
mind  that  drives  Scotsmen  to  seek  consolation 
from  the  only  approach  to  a  bad  poem  that 
Burns  ever  wrote : 

For  a'  that  and  a'  that. 

Their  dignities  and  a'  that. 

The  pith  o'  sense  and  pride  o'  worth 

Are  higher  ranks  than  a'  that. 

As  a  delegate  to  the  Trade  Union  Congress 
of  1887  he  took  the  opportunity  of  saying  what 
he  thought  about  the  diredion  of  the  Liberal 
party.  But  although  he  now  proclaimed  himself 
a  Socialist  and  delivered  a  heated  attack  on 
BroadhurSt,  he  did  not  profess  to  be  anything 
more  than  a  disgruntled  Radical  who  wanted  to 
see  a  powerful  Labour  "  cave  "  in  the  Liberal 
party.  The  idea  of  Labour  representation  in- 
dependent of  Liberalism  had  not  then  occurred 
to  him,  and  it  might  never  have  occurred  to 
him  but  for  Mr.  SchnadhorSt's  little  blunder  in 
the  following  year. 

174 


KEIR     HARDIE 

For  in  1888,  while  he  was  ^ill  smarting  from 
his  rebuff  at  the  hands  of  the  North  Ayrshire 
Liberals,  the  representation  of  his  native  con- 
stituency, Mid-Lanark,  was  vacated  by  the  resig- 
nation of  Mr.  Stephen  Mason,  a  member  of  the 
advanced  Radical  wing  of  his  party.  A  hint  of 
Mr.  Mason's  resignation  had  reached  a  much 
respefted  Glasgow  Irishman  (afterwards  for  many 
years  a  Nationalist  M.P.)  who  was  keenly  in- 
terested in  Labour  representation.  This  gentle- 
man at  once  telegraphed  for  Mr.  Cunninghame 
Graham,  who  then  sat  for  the  North- We§t 
Division  of  Lanarkshire  as  a  Labour  Liberal.  Mr. 
Cunninghame  Graham  hurried  to  Glasgow,  and 
Steps  were  at  once  taken  to  secure  the  Liberal 
nomination  for  Keir  Hardie.  Keir  Hardie  sent  in 
his  application  to  the  Liberal  Association.  It  was 
a  very  civil  Statement  of  his  eminent  qualifications 
— he  was  "  a  lifelong  Liberal  ",  "  a  Staunch  Home 
Ruler  "  and  all  the  reSt  of  it.  Unfortunately, 
although  no  formal  decision  had  been  taken,  the 
Mid-Lanark  Liberal  Association  were  already 
committed  to  the  Whips*  nominee.  Captain 
Sinclair  (afterwards  Lord  Pentland).  In  addition 
Sir  Charles  Cameron's  organs,  the  North  British 
Daily  Mail  and  the  Weekly  Mail^  were  Strongly 
pressing  the  claims  of  a  third  person.  But  Keir 
Hardie  was  not  disposed  to  quit  the  field.  His 
view  of  the  situation  was  expressed  in  The  Miner, 
a  Httle  propaganda  journal  he  had  established 
at  Old  Cumnock  on  his  own  account.    "  Much 

175 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

depends  ",  he  wrote,  "  on  the  position  taken  up  by 
the  Liberal  Association.  It  may  or  may  not  seled: 
a  Labour  candidate.  In  either  case,  my  advice 
would  be  that  the  Labour  candidate  should  be  put 
forward.  Better  split  the  party  now,  if  there  is  to 
be  a  split,  than  at  a  General  Eleftion,  and  if  the 
labour  party  only  make  their  power  felt  now^  terms 
will  not  he  wanting  when  the  General  Ele£lion  comes." 
These  words  admit  of  no  misunderstanding.  The 
Liberal  party  was  to  be  forced  into  making  a  deal. 
Keir  Hardie's  backers,  however,  did  i)ot  take 
the  situation  so  light-heartedly.  A  split  vote 
was  a  serious  matter  to  be  avoided,  if  possible. 
At  this  jun6hire  Henry  Drummond  intervened 
with  a  proposal  for  a  round-table  conference  at 
his  house,  which  was  accepted.  The  negotiators 
were  Drummond,  Lady  Aberdeen,  Captain  Sin- 
clair, Mr.  Cunninghame  Graham  and  his  Irish 
friend.  Keir  Hardie  apparently  was  not  invited. 
After  some  discussion  Captain  Sinclair  agreed  not 
to  press  his  official  claim.  The  various  branch 
associations  were  to  be  allowed  a  free  hand.  The 
way  now  seemed  clear  for  Hardie,  for  it  was 
generally  agreed  that  the  Mail's  nominee  had  no 
chance.  And  then  the  unexpected  happened.  A 
rank  outsider  appeared  in  the  shape  of  a  young 
Welsh  barrister,  Philipps  by  name  in  those  days 
but  now  Lord  St.  Davids,  who  brought  confusion 
upon  the  well-laid  scheme.  Mr.  Philipps,  with 
the  persuasiveness  of  his  race,  Stampeded  the 
Mid-Lanark  Liberals  and  secured  the  nomination 

176 


KEIR     HARDIE 

over  Keir  Hardie  and  the  newspaper  nominee, 
Mr.  Macliver. 

Keir  Hardie  was  chagrined  beyond  expression. 
He  began  to  see  red.    He  would  go  to  the  poll 
in  any  event.     His  determination  to  that  effed 
was  sealed  by  the  arrival  of  £400  towards  his 
eleftion  expenses  from  a  well-meaning  body  that 
called  itself  the  Labour  Electoral  Association. 
T.  R.  Threlfall,  the  Association's  secretary,  came 
into  the  constituency  to  lend  his  aid,  and  also, 
it   may   be   surmised,  to   keep   an  eye  on  the 
disbursements.     Lying    in  wait   for  him  were 
Mr.  SchnadhorSt,  Sir  G.  O.  Trevelyan  and  Mr. 
C.  A.  V.  Conybeare,  with  proposals  for  a  deal. 
After  some  hours'  haggling  the  terms  upon  which 
the  Labour  candidate  was  to  be  withdrawn  were 
agreed.     The    subsequent    interview    in    which 
Keir  Hardie  was  apprised  of  the   bargain  was 
so   unpleasant  that  within  a  few  hours   poor 
Mr.  Threlfall  had  fled  across  the  Border  never  to 
return.     Mr.   SchnadhorSt  tried  next,  but  Keir 
Hardie  wrathfully  refused  to  meet  him.     Eventu- 
ally, however,  he  was  persuaded  to  see  Sir  George 
Trevelyan,  whose  urbanity  mollified  his  manners 
but  did  not  abate  his  resentment  at  the  affront 
he  conceived  to  have  been  put  upon  him.     The 
offer  of  a  seat  at  the  General  Eledion  and  a  very 
decent  little  salary  out  of  the  party  funds  was 
rejefted  as  "  offensive  ". 

A  harder  trafficker  in  human  nature  than  Sir 
George  would   have  taken  the  proper  measure 

177  N 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

of  the  situation.  He  would  have  seen  that  the 
uncouth,  frowning,  rather  stupid  young  man 
who  confronted  him  was  impossible  to  bargain 
with  at  that  moment.  Sweet  reasonableness, 
such  as  Sir  George  purveyed,  was  waited  on 
one  who,  being  neither  sweet  nor  reasonable 
himself,  and  having  had  little  experience  of 
either  quality  in  others  at  the  pithead,  inferred 
nothing  but  a  design  on  the  part  of  "  English 
swells  "  to  diddle  Scotch  working  men  in  general 
and  Jamie  Keir  Hardie  in  particular.  Well,  he 
would  teach  them  the  lesson  of  Bannockburn 
over  again  in  Mid-Lanark.  They  would  soon 
enough  sue  for  peace.  With  a  man  of  this  type, 
especially  one  who  has  a  colliers'  brass  band 
inside  his  head  braying  "  Scots  wha  hae  ",  dis- 
cussion is  out  of  the  question.  He  is  probably 
dangerous,  and  the  only  safe  course  is  to  let  him 
have  his  own  way.  It  is  a  mistake  to  anticipate 
that  he  will  take  advantage  of  a  concession  to 
make  fresh  demands.  He  is  not  at  all  selfish, 
or  even  self-seeking,  but  he  is  self-centred,  and 
the  point  at  issue,  which  to  you  may  seem  trivial, 
is  to  him  a  point  of  honour.  Once  honour  is 
satisfied  he  is  liable  to  become  quite  manageable. 
If  circumstances  compel  you  to  deny  him,  do  not 
let  the  matter  end  there.  At  the  earliest  oppor- 
tunity put  on  hypocritical  sackcloth  and  ashes 
and  you  will  be  forgiven.  On  no  account  leave 
him  any  occasion  to  regret  his  obstinacy ;  for 
according  to  his  canons  of  reasoning  the  event 

178 


KEIR     HARDIE 

that  proves  him  a  fool  proves  you  a  knave,  and 
so  he  will  spend  the  re§t  of  his  life  planning 
mischief  againSt  you. 

The  Liberal  party  failed  to  realise  these  useful 
truths.  They  could  not,  of  course,  withdraw 
the  adopted  candidate,  nor  did  Keir  Hardie  exped 
them  to.  But  he  left  Sir  George  Trevelyan's 
presence  full  of  confidence  and  valour,  being 
persuaded  that  as  soon  as  the  eledion  was  over 
negotiations  would  be  reopened,  and  that  there 
was  nothing  to  be  lo§t  and  much  to  be  gained 
by  a  demonstration  at  the  poll.  There  was  a 
remote  possibility  that  he  might  be  returned. 
More  probably  he  would  split  the  Liberal  vote 
sufficiently  to  give  the  seat  to  the  Unioni^.  In 
any  case  he  would  get  enough  support  to  teach 
the  English  mandarins  the  meaning  of  T^mo  me 
impune  laces  sit.  There  he  judged  badly.  To 
carry  out  his  scheme  he  needed  the  Irish  vote, 
or  a  substantial  part  of  it,  but  his  efforts  in  that 
diredion  were  in  vain.  The  Irish  miners  were 
not  going  to  give  away  a  Home  Rule  seat  simply 
because  some  Scotsmen  were  at  odds  with  official 
Liberalism.  Mr.  Philipps  was  returned,  and 
Keir  Hardie  was  at  the  bottom  of  the  poll  with 
less  than  700  votes.  The  Liberal  party  felt  that 
such  a  result  did  not  call  for  further  adion.  A 
litde  refleftion,  a  little  analysis  of  the  figures 
would  have  shown  them  their  error.  Allowance 
being  made  for  the  heavy  Irish  vote  which 
swelled  the  Liberal  poll,  it  would  have  been 

179 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

found  that,  without  any  organisation  to  help 
him,  Keir  Hardie  detached  20  per  cent  of  the 
native  Liberal  vote,  and  that  his  600  odd  repre- 
sented the  main  body  of  the  non-Irish  miner 
eleftors. 

Immediately  after  the  Mid-Lanark  by-eleftion 
Keir  Hardie  got  a  few  sympathisers  to  meet  in 
Glasgow  and  form  a  Scottish  Labour  party. 
The  new  body  professed  Socialist  principles,  but 
its  inspiration  was  nationali^ic.  There  is  no 
reason  to  regard  it  in  its  inception  as  anything 
but  part  of  the  simple  plan  for  forcing  the  hand 
of  the  Liberal  party  authorities  which  a  few 
weeks  before  Keir  Hardie  had  oudined  in  The 
Miner.  Formerly,  however,  his  idea  had  been 
to  carry  on  the  agitation  through  the  medium  of 
the  Labour  Electoral  Association,  but,  as  we  have 
seen,  his  subsequent  experience  of  that  body 
had  not  been  to  his  liking  and  had  deepened 
his  di§tru§t  of  all  things  English.  He  was 
now  convinced  that  Scottish  Labour  interests 
would  continue  to  be  neglected  unless  they  were 
pressed  by  a  miHtant  Scottish  organisation  free 
of  English  entanglements.  Unfortunately  the 
personnel  of  the  new  organisation  was  feeble. 
Mr.  Cunninghame  Graham,  it  is  true,  was  a 
member.  His  presence  added  pi6hiresqueness, 
but  was  not  calculated  to  impress  anybody  with 
the  representative  character  of  the  Scottish 
Labour  party.  As  a  political  manoeuvre  the 
party    was    an    abjeft    failure.     It    evoked    no 

180 


KEIR     HARDIE 

response  from  the  Liberal  headquarters.  Keir 
Hardie  waited  in  vain  for  a  new  offer  of  terms, 
and  his  sense  of  grievance  deepened  with  every- 
day that  passed.  He  became  angry  and  abusive. 
*'  The  newly  enfranchised  workers  ",  he  wrote, 
"  are  being  used  for  selfish  purposes  by  those 
who  are  more  intelligent  than  themselves." 
That  seemed  to  him  to  be  the  only  possible 
inference  from  the  fad:s  of  his  recent  experience. 
Here  was  he,  secretary  to  the  Scottish  Miners' 
Federation,  and  admittedly  entitled  to  express 
the  sentiment  of  a  large  body  of  working-class 
ele6tors.  He  had  made  a  demand,  a  very  reason- 
able demand,  for  some  Parliamentary  representa- 
tion of  Scottish  Labour,  which,  for  all  their 
democratic  professions,  the  Liberal  party  treated 
with  contempt.  When  they  thought  Mid-Lanark 
was  in  danger  they  had  tried  to  buy  him  off  with 
promises  and  fine  words,  but  once  the  danger 
was  pa§t  they  had  no  more  interest  in  him.  That 
the  Liberal  party  contained  many  good  Radicals 
and  sincere  democrats  he  was  willing  to  admit, 
but  what  could  they  do  so  long  as  the  direc- 
tion of  the  party  remained  a  close  oligarchy 
that  jealously  maintained  the  Whig  tradition  of 
government  by  a  ruling  class  ?  The  workers 
might  try  to  capture  the  party,  but  they  would 
fail  because  their  simplicity  was  no  match  for 
the  secular  cunning  of  the  Whigs.  The  only 
way  was  to  raze  the  edifice  to  the  ground  and 
build  up  a  really  democratic  party  in  its  place. 

i8i 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

Hardie  would  probably  have  arrived  at  the 
same  conclusion  even  if  he  had  never  heard 
of  Socialism ;  but  if  confirmation  were  needed. 
Socialism  to  his  mind  provided  it.  What 
was  his  unhappy  personal  experience  of  Liberal 
duplicity  but  an  example  of  the  impossibility  of 
co-operation  between  the  workers  and  a  bourgeois 
party? 

From  the  year  1889,  when  he  went  to  Paris 
to  take  part  in  the  foundation  of  the  Second 
International,  Hardie  was  a  fully-fledged  Socialist 
waging  inexpiable  war  against  the  Liberal  party. 
But  it  was  no  part  of  his  plan  in  those  early  days 
to  take  the  Red  bonnets  over  the  Border.  The 
Scottish  Labour  party  was  conceived,  not  as  the 
nucleus  of  a  British  Labour  party,  but  as  a  move- 
ment for  the  emancipation  of  Scotland  from  the 
tyranny  of  English  political  ideas  as  expressed  in 
Liberalism.  Like  all  anti-English  movements  in 
Scotland,  it  was  obliged  to  look  to  the  Continent 
for  its  ideas.  Hence  the  aggressive  Socialism 
that  it  preached  from  the  beginning.  The  same 
phenomenon  is  being  repeated  to-day  on  an  even 
more  Striking  scale.  The  Labour  party  having 
become  an  English  institution,  the  patriotic 
fervour  of  Clydeside  now  runs  in  Communist 
channels,  for  no  purpose  but  to  assert  the  national 
differentia. 

It  was  well  for  Keir  Hardie — ^whether  it  was 
to  the  advantage  of  British  politics  is  another 
question — that  he  was  not  permitted  to  continue 

182 


KEIR     HARDIE 

in  the  political  career  he  had  planned  for  himself, 
which  consisted  of  perambulating  Scotland  with 
the  Red  flag  in  one  hand  and  the  "  blue  blanket  " 
in  the  other.  His  fellow-countrymen  were  deplor- 
ably apathetic.  No  Scottish  constituency  seemed 
to  feel  that  Mr.  Cunninghame  Graham  needed 
his  or  anybody  else's  company  at  We§tmin§ter. 
When  at  the  General  Eledion  of  1892  this 
Scottish  patriot  and  sworn  foe  of  Liberalism  did 
get  into  Parliament,  it  was  for  a  London  con- 
stituency and  with  the  support  of  a  Liberal  party 
organisation.  There  was  a  "  cave  "  of  South- 
WeSt  Ham  Radicals  who  were  not  satisfied  that  the 
oflScial  Liberal  candidate  shared  their  enthusiasm 
for  the  economics  of  Henry  George.  Why  they 
should  have  thought  of  Keir  Hardie  as  a  suitable 
person  to  explain  the  beauties  of  the  Single-tax 
to  the  We§t  Ham  electors  does  not  appear,  but 
choose  him  they  did.  He  travelled  from  Old 
Cumnock  to  South- WeSt  Ham  comforted  by  the 
assurance  that  he  was  pradically  certain  to  keep 
the  Liberal  out.  As  it  happened,  the  Liberal  did 
not  need  any  keeping  out.  He  went  out  flatly 
and  finally  in  the  middle  of  the  campaign  by 
dying.  Keir  Hardie,  in  the  language  of  the  day, 
was  on  velvet.  The  local  Liberals,  being  unable 
to  put  a  new  candidate  in  the  field  with  any  chance 
of  success,  had  no  option  but  to  concentrate  on 
the  "  Labour  "  candidate,  who  at  leaSt  could  be 
relied  upon  to  go  into  the  Liberal  lobby  on  all 
vital  occasions.     The  result  was  the  celebrated 

183 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

bit  of  clowning  by  which  the  member  for  South- 
We^  Ham  saw  fit  to  advertise  his  arrival  at 
Westminster.  Wearing  a  cap  inftead  of  his 
customary  bowler,  he  drove  up  in  a  two-horse 
charabanc  with  a  bugler  on  the  box.  And  is  it 
not  written  of  those  who  disfigure  their  faces 
and  sound  a  trumpet  before  them  that  they  have 
their  reward  ?  Keir  Hardie  certainly  had  it.  He 
was  seen  of  men  and  newspaper  reporters,  and 
caused  quite  a  number  of  old  ladies  to  pass  a 
sleepless  night.  He  was  utterly  ravished  by  his 
new  importance,  and  assumed  the  air  he  deemed 
appropriate  to  a  Man  of  Destiny.  His  vision 
splendid  was  no  longer  bounded  by  the  Scottish 
horizon.  It  was  right  that  the  salvation  should 
be  preached  to  the  Scot  first,  but  had  not  the 
oppressed  wage-slaves  of  England  cried  to  him 
to  come  over  and  help  them?  The  Scottish 
Labour  party  mu§t  be  enlarged  into  an  inde- 
pendent Labour  party  of  Great  Britain. 

And  so  at  a  conference  held  at  Bradford  in 
1893  the  I.L.P.  was  born.  Keir  Hardie  was  not 
by  any  means  its  only  begetter,  but  being  its  sole 
representative  in  Parliament  and  editor  of  its 
official  organ,  the  labour  leader,  he  enjoyed  mo§t 
of  the  honour  of  paternity.  As  chairman  of  the 
party  for  the  firSt  seven  years  of  its  existence  he 
prescribed  a  policy  for  it  which  had  at  leaSt  the 
virtue  of  simplicity,  vi2.  to  preach  Socialism  all 
the  time  and  to  annoy  the  Liberals  whenever 
opportunity  offered.     The  former  business  was 

184 


KEIR     HARDIE 

transafted  very  diligently  and  not  without  effect 
at  street  corners.  The  Socialism  was  not  always 
good  Socialism,  but  there  was  no  mistake  about 
the  undion  with  which  it  was  delivered.  Keir 
Hardie  saw  to  that.  His  own  exhortations  were 
much  admired  and  set  the  ^andard  for  his 
disciples.  The  quality  of  his  prophetic  gift  may 
be  judged  from  the  following  words  addressed 
to  the  eledors  of  Merthyr  Tydvil : 

What  is  Socialism  ?  It  is  the  return  to  that  kindly 
phase  of  life  in  which  there  shall  be  no  selfish  lu§t  for 
gold,  with  every  man  trampling  down  his  neighbour  in 
his  mad  rush  to  get  moSt.  Socialism  is  the  reign  of  human 
love  in  room  of  hate.  Socialism  means  that  the  land  of 
Wales  will  again  belong  to  its  people.  Who  made  the 
land  private  property  ?  Who  but  the  robber  band  who 
crossed  the  marches,  plundering,  burning  and  slaying  as 
they  went,  leaving  a  trail  of  red  blood  and  black  woe  to 
mark  their  track  as  they  despoiled  a  high-souled  people  of 
land  and  liberty  ?  And  shall  the  people  of  Wales  tamely 
submit  to  see  the  land  of  their  fathers  remain  for  ever  in 
the  hands  of  the  spoiler  ?  Socialism  says  no.  The  fir§l 
birthright  of  a  free  people  is  to  own  the  land  on  which  they 
live  and  from  which  they  draw  their  food. 

Socialism  says  that  in  addition  to  the  land,  the  pits 
and  railways  and  docks  and  ironworks  and  steelworks  and 
tinworks  should  also  all  belong  to  the  people  and  not  to 
a  few  only.  If  this  were  the  case,  there  would  be  no 
poverty  nor  slums,  nor  half-Starved  children  nor  aged 
poor,  nor  heart-broken  mothers  in  Wales  ;  nor  do  I 
think  there  would  be  any  drunkenness  in  Wales  ;  and  the 
ugliness  and  squalor  which  meet  you  at  every  turn  in  some 
of  the  most  beautiful  valleys  in  the  world  would  disappear, 
the  rivers  would  run  pure  and  clear  as  they  did  of  yore, 
and  woods  would  again  cover  the  mountain  sides  in  which 

185 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

many  birds  would  make  sweet  melody,  whilst  in  spring 
the  lambkins  would  sport  on  the  lea,  and  in  the  summer 
the  full-uddered  kine  would  come  home  lowing  in  the 
gloaming ;  and  in  winter  the  log  would  glow  on  the  fire 
the  while  that  the  youths  and  maidens  made  glad  the  heart 
with  mirth  and  song,  and  there  would  be  beauty  and  joy 
everywhere,  for  men  would  be  living  as  brothers  in  unity 
and  not  tearing  each  other  like  beaSts  of  prey. 

From  which  it  appears  that  the  speaker  was 
acquainted  with  the  works  of  the  Ettrick  Shep- 
herd, David  of  Israel,  Lord  Macaulay,  Dr.  Watts, 
Mr.  Ira  D.  Sankey  and  other  romantic  poets. 
In  1900  the  electors  of  Merthyr  showed  their 
appreciation  of  such  brave  words  by  sending 
him  back  to  the  House  of  Commons,  from  which 
the  fickleness  of  We§t  Ham  had  exiled  him  since 
1895. 

The  other  and  more  speftacular  department 
of  I.L.P.  adivity  consisted  in  queering  the  Liberal 
pitch  at  by-ele6lions  by  putting  up  candidates 
who  could  not  possibly  get  in  themselves  but 
would  probably  succeed  in  their  real  objeftive 
of  keeping  the  Liberal  out.  The  wisdom  of  the 
policy  was  sometimes  queftioned  even  by  Hardie's 
most  earnest  supporters,  but  he  insisted  upon  it. 
As  Mr.  Squeers  remarked  when  he  thrashed 
Smike  in  the  hackney  cab,  it  was  inconvenient 
but  satisfying.  The  Liberal  newspapers  pro- 
tested, at  first  angrily  with  suggestions  of  "  Tory 
gold  ",  and  then,  when  that  came  to  look  silly, 
with  tearful  argumentation  about  the  folly  of 
what  they  called  "  splitting  the  Progressive  vote  ". 

186 


KEIR     HARDIE 

Keir  Hardie  didn't  care  what  they  said.  He  knew 
that  he  was  not  to  be  bought  by  gold,  either 
Tory  or  Liberal,  and  as  for  splitting  the  Pro- 
gressive vote,  that  was  exadly  what  he  intended, 
because  he  believed  it  to  be  the  only  way  of 
liberating  democracy  from  the  unconscionable 
tyranny  of  the  Whigs .  The  new  party  of  progress 
mu§t  represent  a  clean  break  with  the  Whig 
tradition,  a  repudiation  of  the  bad  old  pa§t  and 
a  §teadfa§t  oudook  on  the  glorious  future.  The 
future,  as  William  James  has  observed,  has  a 
great  attraction  for  idealistic  minds  because  it  is 
a  "  soft  option  ".  Keir  Hardie  wallowed  in  soft 
options.  The  pa§t  has  the  awkward  character 
of  being  real,  a  cruel  agglomeration  of  hard 
lacerating  fafts,  which  soft  minds  like  Hardie's 
have  always  sought  to  belie  by  the  pretence  that 
only  the  recent  pa§t  is  bad,  and  if  you  could  only 
cut  it  out  and  short-circuit  the  present  with  the 
remoter  ages  all  would  be  well  for  the  future. 

Fortunately  for  Labour  there  were  a  number 
of  men  who,  having  some  glimmerings  of  political 
sagacity  and  political  insight,  realised  that  the 
movement  needed  something  more  than  the 
mixture  of  rancour  and  un£tion  supplied  by  Keir 
Hardie  and  the  I.L.P.  To  keep  Liberals  out 
might  be  good,  but  to  get  Labour  men  in  would 
be  better.  A  severely  business-like  organisation 
called  the  Labour  Representation  Committee  was 
set  up,  and  things  began  to  move.  Within  a  few 
years  the  Parliamentary  Labour  party  had  come 

187 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

into  being — a  body  very  different  in  temper  and 
outlook  from  the  creature  of  Keir  Hardie's 
dreams.  For  auld  lang  syne  he  was  permitted 
to  lead  it  for  a  session ;  then  gently,  slowly,  but 
irresistibly,  he  was  propelled  towards  the  shelf. 
In  his  heart  of  hearts  he  knew  what  was  happen- 
ing, but  his  natural  vanity  enabled  him  to  bear 
it.  Parliament,  he  freely  admitted,  was  not  his 
metier,  for  what  prophetic  soul  could  funftion 
under  its  petty  limitations  ?  Of  his  prophetic 
vocation  he  had  not  a  shadow  of  doubt,  and  his 
praftical-minded  English  colleagues  were  only 
too  anxious  to  encourage  an  illusion  that  pleased 
him  and  allowed  them  to  get  on  with  the  job. 
He  was  at  great  pains  to  look  the  part.  In  1906, 
when  the  Labour  party  "  arrived  ",  he  was  barely 
fifty,  but  by  cultivating  his  hair  and  beard — 
there  is  much  prophetic  virtue  in  a  beard — he 
contrived  to  give  the  impression  of  sixty-five. 
The  tweed  cap  of  1892  had  been  discarded  in 
favour  of  a  broad  -  brimmed  sombrero.  He 
wore  a  flowing  tie  and  smoked  a  corn-cob 
pipe.  The  result  was  a  tableful  human  composi- 
tion featuring  Lord  Tennyson,  William  Morris, 
Walt  W^hitman,  Elijah  the  Tishbite,  Sir  Hall 
Caine,  and  (though  it  rather  spoiled  the  general 
effect)  a  certain  Scotsman  named  James  Keir 
Hardie. 

0  san^a  simplicitas  that  thought  to  have  found 
the  mantle  of  a  proletarian  prophet  in  the  caft-off 
rags  of  Vidorian  Bohemia  !     0  san^a  simplicifas 

188 


KEIR     HARDIE 

that,  with  slow  but  fell  loquacity,  unexampled 
dullness  and  great  audibility,  sought  to  rouse  the 
House  of  Commons  to  the  urgency  of  building 
Jerusalem  in  England's  green  and  pleasant  land ! 
O  san£ta  simplicitas  that  could  imagine  hard- 
headed  Englishmen  shedding  the  political  wisdom 
of  centuries  at  the  bidding  of  a  bumptious  wooUy- 
witted  Scotch  collier  who  seemed  to  have  been 
specially  created  by  Providence  to  confirm  the 
fine  old  English  tradition  that  Scotsmen  have  no 
sense  of  humour !  0  saniia  simplicitas  of  the 
young  lady  of  Riga  ! 

The  initial  trouble  with  Keir  Hardie  was  that 
he  had  been  brought  up  in  the  superstition,  Still 
widely  held  north  of  the  Tweed,  that  almost  any 
Scotsman  is  superior  to  every  Englishman  what- 
soever in  intelleft,  morals  and  spirituality.  As 
the  average  Scotsman's  acquaintance  with  the 
English  was  confined  until  recent  years  to  com- 
mercial travellers,  shooting  tenants.  Parliamentary 
candidates,  and  the  officers  and  men  of  Highland 
regiments,  the  error  is  perhaps  excusable.  But 
it  is  none  the  less  an  error,  and,  to  do  the  Scotsman 
justice,  it  is  an  error  of  which  every  Scotsman 
with  any  pretensions  to  common  sense  disabuses 
himself  before  he  is  many  miles  over  the  Border. 
But  common  sense  Keir  Hardie  had  not,  any 
more  than  he  had  the  salt  and  salacious  humour 
by  which  a  merciful  Providence  has  redeemed 
Scotsmen  at  large  from  being  the  dreariest  race 
of  prigs  weSt  of  Suez.     To  national  conceit  he 

189 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

added  the  big  endowment  of  personal  vanity  to 
which  sufficient  reference  has  been  made.  Sin- 
cerity he  certainly  had,  and  good  intentions,  but 
as  his  sincerity  manifested  itself  in  a  petty  fanati- 
cism, and  his  good  intentions  usually  took  a  spite- 
ful turn,  the  value  of  these  qualities  is  subjed  to 
a  large  discount.  A  genteel  taSte  in  reading — 
"  only  that  and  nothing  more  " — con^ituted  his 
intelledhial  equipment  for  the  task  of  reforming 
British  politics.  Altogether  it  was  a  sad  busi- 
ness, but  Providence  was  not  too  unkind.  The 
Prophet  of  Labour  was  permitted  to  depart  in 
peace  in  1915  in  his  sixtieth  year.  He  lived 
to  see  the  Great  War,  and  its  bloody  proof 
that  the  salvation  of  humanity  was  not  the  easy 
matter  that  he  had  been  preaching  as  gospel  for 
thirty  years  broke  his  simple  heart,  and  he  died. 
Perhaps  it  was  all  for  the  be§t  in  the  be§t  of 
all  possible  worlds.  The  Parliamentary  Labour 
party  had  got  beyond  his  comprehension.  Some 
of  its  members  serenely  joined  a  "  Jingo  "  War 
Cabinet,  drawing  their  mini^erial  salaries  and 
grumbling  in  private  about  the  super-tax  like  the 
honest  Englishmen  they  were,  while  others  sate 
glumly  in  the  wilderness.  That  was  bad — very 
bad.  But  at  leaSt  he  died  in  time  to  be  spared 
the  humiliation  of  seeing  the  Whigs,  to  whose 
destruction  he  had  devoted  his  days,  taking 
office  in  a  Labour  Government  as  if  it  were  the 
most  natural  thing  in  the  world.  Tamen  usque 
recurrent. 

190 


LORD  OVERTOUN 

"  Never — I  should  warn  you  fit§t — 
Of  my  own  choice  had  this,  if  not  the  wotSl 
Yet  not  the  beSl  expedient,  served  to  tell 
A  Story  I  could  body  forth  so  well." 

John  Campbell  White,  Baron  Overtoun  of 
Overtoun  in  the  county  of  Dumbarton  (cr.  1893), 
died  sine  prole  at  his  Dumbartonshire  residence  at 
5.30  A.M.  on  Saturday,  February  15,  1908,  in  his 
sixty-fifth  year.  On  the  previous  Saturday  his 
Lordship  had  motored  up  the  Vale  of  Leven  to 
visit  his  uncle,  a  gentleman  over  ninety  years  of 
age,  as  a  result  of  which  he  contrafted  a  chill. 
On  the  Sabbath,  though  complaining  of  illness, 
he  was  in  his  accustomed  place  at  the  morning 
diet  of  worship  at  Dumbarton  United  Free  High 
Church,  and  in  the  evening  he  condu6);ed  his 
Bible  class  as  usual,  but  on  the  following  day 
pneumonia  supervened.  His  Lordship's  robuft 
constitution  caused  hopes  to  be  entertained  that 
the  dread  disease  might  successfully  be  resisted, 
but  these  were  doomed  to  disappointment,  and 
his  illness  terminated  fatally,  as  Stated. 

From  the  pulpit  and  press  references,  sym- 
pathetic as  they  were  innumerable,  to  the  sad 
event,  we  cull  the  following  as  typical :    "  The 

191 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

news  of  Lord  Overtoun's  death  will  be  received 
with  an  almost  personal  sorrow  in  every  part 
of  Scotland,  for  his  princely  generosity  flowed 
through  channels  that  conveyed  its  beneficent 
influence  to  the  remotest  comers  of  the  country." 
Such  a  tribute,  paid  as  it  was  in  a  leading  article 
by  a  great  newspaper  which  notoriously  did  not 
see  always  eye  to  eye  with  his  Lordship  in  regard 
to  the  leading  ecclesiastical  and  political  questions 
of  the  day,  is  a  ftriking  testimony  to  the  high 
place  the  deceased  nobleman  held  in  the  esteem 
and  affedions  of  his  fellow-countrymen  irre- 
spective of  class,  creed  or  political  colour.  It 
would  have  been  Strange  had  it  been  otherwise. 
The  proprietor  of  a  large  and  successful  manu- 
faduring  business,  the  inheritor  and — ^for  no  man 
ever  more  worthily  exemplified  the  truth  of  the 
Scriptural  adage  that  "  the  hand  of  the  diligent 
maketh  rich  " — the  creator  of  vaSt  wealth,  com- 
bining as  he  did  business  acumen  of  no  mean 
order  with  the  greatest  religious  ad:ivity  in  a 
manner  that  commanded  universal  admiration, 
John  Campbell  White  was  indeed  a  man  re- 
markable among  his  compeers.  He  filled  the 
varied  role  of  merchant  prince,  county  magnate. 
Churchman,  evangelist  and  philanthropist,  and 
later  took  his  place  among  the  legislators  of  the 
Upper  House  of  Parliament,  this  laSt  perhaps  in 
a  less  degree  than  his  other  aftivities,  though  even 
in  the  House  of  Lords  his  influence  was  exerted 
on  behalf  of  every  good  cause. 

192 


LORD     OVERTOUN 

But  the  high  honour  which  came  to  Mr. 
Campbell  White  (as  he  then  was)  in  his  fiftieth 
year,  through  the  instrumentality  of  Mr.  Gladstone, 
was  no  more  than  a  timely  recognition  by  the 
Sovereign  of  noble  and  unstinted  public  service 
rendered  from  youth  upwards.  His  devotion  to 
the  Free  (afterwards  United  Free)  Church  may 
be  described  as  inbred.  Born  on  November  ii, 
1843,  he  was  literally  cradled  in  the  Disruption, 
his  parents  having  "  come  out "  on  that  historic 
occasion  juSt  six  months  before  his  birth,  thereby 
sacrificing  their  personal  convenience  to  their 
convictions  and  throwing  their  great  influence 
upon  the  side  of  the  dissenting  body.  His  father, 
the  late  Mr.  James  White  of  Shawfield,  was  at 
that  time  practising  as  a  solicitor  in  Glasgow,  but 
shortly  afterwards  exchanged  law  for  industry, 
becoming  senior  partner  in  the  firm  of  J.  &  J. 
White,  chemical  manufacturers,  Shawfield,  Ruther- 
glen,  and  a  highly  respeCted  member  of  the 
business  community  of  Glasgow,  to  which  the 
ancient  and  royal  burgh  of  Rutherglen  is  adjacent. 
His  mother  was  a  daughter  of  the  late  John 
Campbell,  Esq.,  of  Barnhill,  Sheriff  of  Renfrew, 
and  a  sister  of  the  late  Neil  Campbell,  Esq., 
Sheriff  of  Ayr,  a  distinguished  leader  of  the  Scots 
Bar  and  for  many  years  adviser  of  the  Free 
Church,  and  was  furthermore  a  woman  of 
great  force  of  character  and  Strong  religious 
convictions.  Of  the  household  at  Hayfield, 
Rutherglen,   and   afterwards   at   Overtoun,  the 

193  o 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

palatial  Dumbartonshire  residence  to  which  Mr. 

James  White  removed  in   1863,  it  may  indeed 

be  said   in  the  noble  words  of  the  National 

Bard, 

From  scenes  like  these  old  Scotia's  grandeur  springs 
That  makes  her  loved  at  home,  revered  abroad. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  early  training  and 
influence  gave  the  future  Lord  Overtoun  the 
bent  which  mo§l  charafterised  his  career.  He 
was  educated  at  the  Glasgow  Academy,  and 
thence  proceeded  to  Glasgow  University,  Mr. 
James  White,  with  that  proverbial  Scottish  venera- 
tion for  learning,  being  Wrongly  of  opinion  that 
a  knowledge  of  the  liberal  arts  is  not  only  not 
prejudicial  but  may  even  be  advantageous  to  a 
young  man  designed  for  commercial  pursuits, 
provided,  of  course,  that  he  is  of  the  right  §tamp. 
Young  Mr.  Campbell  White  (as  he  then  was) 
pursued  his  university  studies  at  the  old  College 
Buildings  in  High  Street,  soon  to  be  swept  away 
by  the  irresistible  march  of  progress  and  replaced 
by  the  magnificent  pile  with  which  the  genius  of 
the  late  Sir  Gilbert  Scott,  R.A.,  has  since  crowned 
the  romantic  heights  of  Gilmorehill.  He  showed 
a  marked  bent  for  science,  taking  pri2es  in  Logic 
and  Natural  Philosophy.  The  latter  important 
subje6t  was  then  in  the  distinguished  hands  of 
Professor  WilHam  Thomson,  now  better  known 
as  Lord  Kelvin,  for  whom  all  his  life  Lord  Over- 
toun entertained  a  warm  personal  regard.  It 
was  always  a  matter  for  keen  regret  to  Lord 

194 


LORD     OVERTOUN 

Overtoun  that,  owing  to  circumstances  over 
which  he  had  no  control,  he  was  unable  to 
accompany  Lord  Kelvin  (or  Professor  Thomson 
as  he  then  was)  as  his  assistant  on  the  historic 
voyage  of  the  Great  EaHern  to  lay  the  Atlantic 
cable,  but  in  point  of  fad  the  poSt  had  been  filled 
before  his  application  was  received.  The  associa- 
tion of  the  two  men  (each  so  eminent  in  their 
different  spheres)  was  to  be  renewed  later,  how- 
ever, in  the  House  of  Lords — though  not  of 
course  on  the  same  side  of  it — and  it  muSt  have 
afforded  the  great  scientist  the  keenest  satisfa6tion 
to  be  able,  within  a  year  of  his  own  elevation,  to 
welcome  to  the  Gilded  Chamber  one  of  his  old 
Students  who  had  also  attained  diStindtion,  though 
in  another  walk  of  life. 

But,  while  as  a  young  man  Lord  Overtoun 
may  have  been  sensible  to  the  attradion  of  a 
scientific  career,  it  was  ever  a  cardinal  point  in 
his  faith  to  be  content  with  that  position  in  life 
to  which  an  All-wise  Providence  had  called  him. 
Accordingly,  after  taking  the  degree  of  M.A.  he 
entered  as  his  father's  only  son  his  father's 
exceedingly  prosperous  establishment,  and  in 
1867  was  assumed  as  a  partner.  In  the  same  year 
he  married  Grace,  daughter  of  the  late  Mr.  James 
H.  McClure,  head  of  an  eminent  firm  of  solicitors 
in  Glasgow.  Lady  Overtoun  was  her  husband's 
devoted  helpmeet  and  the  tireless  coadjutor  in 
all  his  manifold  beneficent  adivities,  but  there 
was  no  issue  of  the  union.     In  due  course,  upon 

195 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

the  demise  of  his  father  and  uncle,  Mr.  Campbell 
White  (as  he  then  was)  became  sole  proprietor  of 
Messrs.  J.  &  J.  White's  vaSt  enterprise,  reputed 
to  be  the  larger  of  its  kind  in  the  world.     The 
firm's  principal  output  is  chrome,  a  commodity 
which,  needless  to  say,  is  of  prime  importance  to 
the  leather  trade.     Under  Lord  Overtoun's  wise 
and  capable  direction  its  prosperity  continued 
undiminished  and  large   profits   were   realised. 
Owing  to  the  magnitude  of  the  undertaking  and 
the  unceasing  demands  upon  his  time  and  energy 
which    his    philanthropic    and    religious    work 
involved,  his  Lordship  for  many  years  prior  to 
his  death  devolved  the  entire  superintendence  of 
the  Shawfield  works  upon  two  of  his  nephews, 
but  he  continued  to  take  an  adtive  interest  in  the 
commercial  side  of  the  business  up  to  the  very 
la§t,  attending  regularly  in  his  office  in  We§t 
George  Street,  Glasgow.     But  although  no  longer 
resident  in  Rutherglen  or  concerning  himself 
with  the  a6hial  processes  of  chrome  manufa6hire. 
Lord  Overtoun  was  never  immindful  of  the  royal 
burgh  with  which  his  family  fortunes  had  been 
so  happily  associated,  and  whose  ancient  motto 
Ex  fumo  jama  derived  a  new  and  substantial 
significance  from  the  Shawfield  chemical  works. 
Among  his  many  benefactions  were  a  Public 
Park  and  an  Institute,  with  reading-room,  gym- 
nasium, baths,  etc.,  and  for  many  years  he  main- 
tained at  his  own  expense  a  Bible-woman,  a 
Scripture-reader  and  a  trained  nurse. 

196 


LORD     OVERTOUN 

Preaching  from  Romans  xii.  2  on  the  Sabbath 
following  his  Lordship's  passing  away,  a  large 
number  of  distinguished  Presbyterian  divines 
observed  that  seldom,  if  ever,  had  the  ApoSde's 
pregnant  epitome  of  the  Christian  life  been  more 
nobly  exemplified  than  in  the  life  of  Lord  Over- 
toun.  Nor  was  this  less  than  the  truth  concern- 
ing this  exceedingly  rich  man  who  had  now  un- 
doubtedly entered  the  kingdom  of  Heaven.  Not 
by  any  means  slothful  in  business,  reUgion  and 
philanthropy  were  the  chief  outlets  of  his  Lord- 
ship's marvellous  a6Hvity.  On  these  depart- 
ments of  thought  and  life  he  beStowed  imceasing 
attention.  One  of  his  published  addresses  con- 
tains these  Striking  words  :  "  I  feel  Strongly  that 
everyone  in  a  community  is  bound  by  the  highest 
obligations,  whatever  his  position  be,  to  try  to 
live,  not  for  self  alone,  but  for  others  and  to 
seek  as  he  beSt  can  to  promote  their  welfare." 
His  parents  by  precept  and  example  had  laid  the 
foundations  of  a  profoundly  religious  charafter, 
to  which  was  added  a  note  of  sincere  personal 
conviftion  born  of  the  great  revival  movements 
of  last  century.  It  was  during  the  revival  of 
1859-60  that  his  first  deep  reUgious  impressions 
were  received,  deepened  as  they  were  by  the 
revival  influence  of  Mr.  D.  L.  Moody  in  1874. 
Through  the  guidance  of  that  great  American 
evangelist,  John  Campbell  White  (as  he  then  was) 
was  brought  prominently  out  as  a  leader  in 
evangelical  Christianity  in  Scotland,  a  position 

197 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

he  held  through  his  days  of  exalted  honour  to 
the  lait.  Both  at  Rutherglen  and  Dumbarton 
he  was,  in  his  youth,  a  Sabbath  school  teacher. 
He  was  an  elder  in  the  United  Free  High  Church, 
Dumbarton,  and  down  to  the  laSt  he  conscien- 
tiously discharged  the  duties  of  the  office.  The 
Bible  class  he  conduced  for  nearly  forty  years 
was  a  remarkable  organisation  which,  from  small 
beginnings,  had  latterly  a  roll  of  600  names. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  exaggerate  the 
importance  of  the  part  played  by  Lord  Overtoun 
in  that  branch  of  the  Church  of  Scotland  with 
which  he  was  all  his  life  associated.  He  was  for 
more  than  a  generation  a  prominent,  though  as 
a  rule  silent,  figure  in  the  General  Assembly  of 
the  Free  (afterwards  the  United  Free)  Church, 
sitting  invariably  as  a  representative  elder  from 
the  Presbytery  of  Dumbarton.  Save  in  one 
important  respeft,  hereinafter  to  be  mentioned, 
he  figured  chiefly  as  convener  of  the  LivingStonia 
Mission  of  the  Church,  for  which  he  had  an 
hereditary  attachment,  his  father  having  held 
that  position  until  his  death  in  1884.  Under  all 
circumstances  it  was  perhaps  only  to  be  expedied 
that  none  should  know  better  than  Lord  Overtoun 
the  history  and  details  of  the  celebrated  Central 
African  mission ;  but  he  never  visited  the  Stations, 
though  often  pressed  to  do  so.  Precluded  by 
his  numerous  business  engagements  from  taking 
a  larger  part  in  the  administrative  work  of  the 
Church,  Lord  Overtoun,  like  his  father,  preferred 

198 


LORD     OVERTOUN 

to  be  known  as  the  cheerful  giver  rather  than  as 
the  Church  leader.  His  great  services  to  religion 
are  to  be  measured  in  terms  far  more  eloquent 
than  frequent  participation  in  debates  and  attend- 
ance at  committee  meetings.  In  all  reverence, 
be  it  said,  his  Lordship  furnished  a  heartening 
illustration  of  the  motto,  "  Money  talks  ".  As 
we  have  seen,  the  spread  of  the  Gospel  in  Africa 
held  a  special  place  in  his  aiSfedions,  and  he 
rendered  memorable  service  to  the  cause  of 
Christianity  in  the  Dark  Continent  and  elsewhere 
by  his  munificence,  always  coming  to  the  rescue 
of  threatened  deficits  in  the  funds — a  contingency 
of  unhappily  frequent  occurrence  in  the  mission- 
field,  its  being  a  noteworthy  faft  that  even  in  the 
darkest  continents  both  money  and  the  lack  of 
money  speak  as  loudly  as  in  our  own  enlightened 
land. 

One  of  the  largest  contributors  to  the  SuStenta- 
tion,  or  Central  Fund,  as  it  is  now  called,  which 
is  the  financial  mainstay  of  the  United  Free  Church, 
Lord  Overtoun's  purse  was  ever  at  the  disposal 
of  any  Church  objeft,  great  or  small.  No  humble 
Highland  minister  seeking  aid  for  urgent  repairs 
to  church  or  manse  ever  approached  the  impress- 
ive portals  of  Overtoun  House  unbuoyed  by 
hope,  or  departed  thence  without  a  remembrance 
of  his  noble  hoSt  in  the  form  of  a  treasured  leaf 
from  his  Lordship's  cheque-book.  Is  it,  we  ask, 
any  wonder  that  his  Lordship  became  almost 
universally  venerated,  nay  beloved,  and  not  for 

199 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

himself  alone  ?  It  seemed  but  natural  that,  on 
the  death  of  the  fifteenth  Earl  of  Moray,  he  and 
none  other  should  be  chosen  to  succeed  to  the 
honour  of  annually  seconding  the  eleftion  of 
the  Moderator  of  the  General  Assembly.  Like 
Lord  Moray  he  generally  graced  the  occasion 
by  appearing  in  the  uniform  of  the  Lieutenancy, 
adding,  as  was  often  remarked  in  the  press,  "  the 
only  bright  note  of  colour  to  the  ceremonial  of 
the  day  ".  It  may  be  said  in  passing  that  the 
uniform  was  set  off  by  his  Lordship's  figure 
infinitely  better  than  it  had  been  by  that  of  his 
noble  predecessor,  who,  though  of  so  ancient  a 
line,  was  a  small  man  with  bandy  legs.  Lord 
Overtoun,  on  the  contrary,  despite  a  lineage  that 
was  unaffededly  middle-class,  had  what  may  be 
described  (and  frequently  in  his  case  was  described) 
as  an  aristocratic  appearance.  Fairly  tall,  with 
Straight  legs  and  an  almost  soldierly  bearing  (he 
had  been  an  officer  in  the  Volunteers),  he  wore  a 
reserved,  even  a  careful,  composure  of  expression 
upon  his  well-chiselled  features.  He  was  one 
of  the  general  trustees  of  the  United  Free 
Church,  and  as  such  his  name  appeared  as  the 
principal  defender  in  the  celebrated  case  of  the 
General  Assembly  of  the  Free  Church  v.  Overtoun 
and  Others.  Into  the  details  of  that  celebrated 
litigation  it  is  unnecessary  here  to  enter.  Suffice 
it  to  say  that  no  one  more  than  his  Lordship 
deplored  and  condemned  the  fantastic  interpreta- 
tion of  the  law  of  trusts  by  which  the  House  of 

200 


LORD     OVERTOUN 

Lords,  reversing  the  unanimous  and  better- 
informed  opinion  of  the  Scottish  Courts,  Stripped 
the  United  Free  Church  of  its  possessions.  As 
is  well  known,  the  injuftice  was  remedied  by- 
Parliament  by  means  of  the  Scottish  Churches 
Aft,  in  the  passing  of  which  Lord  Overtoun 
rendered  valuable  assistance  in  his  place  in  the 
Upper  House.  During  the  crisis  his  Lordship 
headed  the  Church's  Emergency  Fund  with  the 
truly  magnificent  subscription  of  £10,000,  and 
this  generosity  was  repeated  only  a  few  days 
before  his  lamented  decease  in  connexion  with 
an  appeal  on  behalf  of  dispossessed  ministers  and 
congregations  in  the  Highlands.  The  Church 
was  indeed  the  poorer  by  his  death,  for  his  testa- 
mentary donations,  large  as  they  were,  did  not 
at  all  represent  the  capitalised  value  of  his  annual 
donations,  and  so  were  bound,  in  the  nature  of 
things,  to  cause  disappointment.  Alas  !  How 
truly  may  it  be  said  of  the  passing  of  the  rich 
and  great,  Pereunt  et  imputantur. 

But  Lord  Overtoun's  generosity  was  far  from 
being  confined  within  the  limits  of  denomina- 
tional benefaftions.  Every  organisation  that  had 
for  its  aim  the  promotion  of  evangelical  Christian- 
ity (so  long  as  it  was  an  organisation)  had  in  him 
a  warm  friend.  He  was  the  financial  backbone 
of  the  handsome  pile  of  masonry  known  as  the 
Christian  Institute,  which  is  the  headquarters  of 
the  Glasgow  United  Evangelical  Association,  etc. 
etc.,  and  of  its  annexes,  the  Y.M.C.A.  Club  and 

201 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

the  Bible  Training  Institute,  the  latter  institution 
being  the  joint  gift  of  himself  and  his  sifter  for 
the  purpose  of  training  young  men  and  women 
as  lay  evangelists.  By  his  princely  munificence 
he  obtained  a  commanding  interest  in  moSt  of  the 
WeSt  of  Scotland  hospitals  and  homes.  Indeed 
it  may  be  said  that  the  name  of  the  religious  and 
philanthropic  bodies  with  which  he  was  associated 
was  legion.  Besides  being  president  of  the 
Glasgow  United  Evangelistic  Association,  the 
Bible  Training  Institute  and  the  Glasgow  Medical 
Missionary  Society,  he  was  a  vice-president  of  the 
National  Bible  Society,  the  Colportage  Society, 
the  Boys'  Brigade,  the  Glasgow  Royal  Samaritan 
Hospital  for  Women,  the  City  of  Glasgow  Native 
Benevolent  Society,  the  Glasgow  Royal  Hospital 
for  Sick  Children,  the  Scottish  National  Hospital 
for  Imbecile  Children,  etc.  etc.  As  may  readily 
be  imagined,  amid  these  multifarious  aftivities  his 
Lordship  found  it  well-nigh,  if  not  wholly,  im- 
possible to  play  the  more  private  part  of  an  in- 
dividual gentleman,  and  indeed,  so  far  as  we  have 
been  able  to  gain  information,  from  obituary 
notices  of  his  Lordship  and  other  sources,  he  was 
pradically  unknown  in  this  capacity.  No  doubt 
it  was  one  of  the  many  sacrifices  made  by  him 
upon  the  altar  of  his  faith. 

Personally  a  total  abstainer,  Lord  Overtoun 
was  an  ardent  advocate  of  the  temperance  cause. 
As  a  young  man  he  had  been  associated  with 
evangelistic  and  charitable  effort  among  the  slum 

202 


LORD     OVERTOUN 

dwellers  of  Glasgow,  and  the  harrowing  sights 
he  then  witnessed  convinced  him  that  the  Drink 
Traffic  was  the  root  of  all  the  social  evils  of  the 
day,  besides  being  a  grave  economic  burden  upon 
the  nation  in  a  time  of  increasing  competition 
for  the  markets  of  the  world.  As  a  justice  of  the 
peace  for  Dumbarton  he  took  an  adive  part  in 
the  affairs  of  the  Licensing  Court,  where  his  vote 
and  influence  were  always  on  the  side  of  temper- 
ance, though  he  never  allowed  preconceived 
opinions  to  weigh  with  him  to  the  complete 
exclusion  of  his  official  responsibility.  Sabbath 
observance  was  another  social  question  on  which 
his  Lordship  felt  Strongly.  In  common  with  the 
best  minds  in  Scotland  he  deeply  deplored  the 
growing  tendency  to  encroach  upon  the  sacred- 
ness  of  the  Day  of  ReSt,  and  took  a  prominent 
part  in  the  opposition  to  the  introdudion  of  a 
Sunday  tramway  service  in  Glasgow.  In  this 
resped  Lord  Overtoun's  attitude  was  misvmder- 
Stood  in  some  quarters.  It  was  represented  as 
unreasonable  that  anyone  who  was  himself  no 
inconsiderable  employer  of  Sunday  labour,  and 
who  thought  it  no  sin  to  ride  in  his  carriage 
on  the  Sabbath,  should  obje£t  to  persons  in  less 
affluent  circumstances  riding  in  a  tramcar.  Those 
who  argued  thus  failed,  of  course,  to  appreciate 
the  clear  diStinftion  that  underlay  Lord  Over- 
toun's point  of  view.  He  was  no  bigoted  Sab- 
batarian where  he  himself  was  concerned.  As  the 
head  of  a  great  industrial  undertaking  he  was  fiilly 

203 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

conscious  that  a  considerable  amount  of  Sunday 
labour  is  one  of  the  inexorable  demands  of 
economic  law,  and  as  a  successful  business  man 
he  had  certain  legitimate  private  indulgences. 
On  the  other  hand,  a  line  muSt  be  drawn  between 
such  things  and  a  public  utility  carried  on  for 
profit  in  the  eyes  of  all  men  upon  the  Lord's  Day. 
To  countenance  such  a  proceeding  was  to  declare 
oneself  as  willing  to  barter  the  Scottish  Sabbath 
with  all  its  sanftified  traditions  and  its  beautiful 
quietude  for  the  Continental  Sunday,  and  against 
this  his  Lordship  would  set  his  face  like  a  flint. 
The  reasoning  here  mu§t  be  so  obvious  to  the 
intelligent  reader  that  it  calls  for  no  further 
elaboration. 

A  launch  supporter  of  the  Liberal  party,  Mr. 
Campbell  White  (as  he  §till  then  was)  loyally 
followed  Mr.  GladSone  on  the  Home  Rule 
question.  In  so  doing  he  had  to  part  company 
with  many  old  political  friends,  but  his  mind  on 
the  subjed  was  quite  clear,  and  to  the  la^  he 
remained  convinced  that  the  only  solution  to  the 
Irish  question  was  to  give  the  people  of  Ireland 
the  fullest  measure  of  self-government  compatible 
with  the  supremacy  of  the  Imperial  Parliament. 
So  far  from  being  influenced  by  the  cry  that 
Home  Rule  would  mean  Rome  Rule,  he  inclined 
to  the  view  that  a  generous  measure  of  Home 
Rule  would  be  the  firSt  §tep  towards  the  emancipa- 
tion of  the  Irish  people  from  the  tyranny  of  super- 
stition and  a  potent  aid  to  the  spread  of  evangelical 

204 


LORD     OVERTOUN 

truth  in  the  distressful  country.  With  his  un- 
failing response  to  the  appeal  of  any  good  cause 
he  was  a  handsome  contributor  to  the  Liberal 
party  war-che§t,  and  when  in  1893,  during  Mr. 
Gladstone's  laSt  administration,  he  was  elevated 
to  the  peerage,  it  was  universally  recognised  that 
never  had  an  honour  of  the  kind  been  more 
worthily  beStowed.  With  the  clearness  of  con- 
science and  the  simplicity  that  always  character- 
ised him  he  chose  as  the  motto  for  his  escutcheon 
the  single  word  "  Virtute ",  meaning  "  by 
virtue  ". 

Lord  Overtoun  was  not  destined  to  be  a  pro- 
minent figure  in  the  House  of  Lords,  but  it  was 
noticeable  that  in  the  laSt  few  years  he  began  to 
participate  aftively  more  in  political  aflfairs,  follow- 
ing the  dramatic  revival  of  the  fortunes  of  the 
Liberal  party  that  set  in  at  the  General  Ele6lion 
of  1906.  At  that  eleftion  his  nephew.  Dr.  J. 
Dundas  White  (now  a  well-known  member  of 
the  Labour  party),  captured  Dumbartonshire  from 
the  Unionists.  As  a  thank-offering  for  this,  one 
of  the  most  notable  Liberal  victories  in  Scotland, 
his  Lordship  sent  a  cheque  for  £5000  to  the  Town 
Council  of  Clydebank  for  the  avowed  purpose 
of  purchasing  a  public  park  for  the  great  ship- 
building burgh. 

In  local  affairs  Lord  Overtoun  gave  lavishly  of 
his  time  and  money.  In  1 890  he  was  eleded  to  the 
Dumbarton  County  Coimcil,  and  on  the  resigna- 
tion of  his  uncle,  Mr.  Mackenzie  of  Caldarvan, 

205 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

he  was  unanimously  chosen  convener,  a  position 
he  held  to  the  la§t.     A  Deputy  Lieutenant  for 
Dumbartonshire  since  1884,  on  the  death  of  Sir 
Jarties  Colquhoun  of  Luss,  5  th  baronet,  in  1907, 
he  was  appointed  Lord-Lieutenant  of  the  county. 
For  the  new  duties  imposed  on  the  Lieutenancy 
by   Mr.   (now   Viscount)    Haldane's   Territorial 
Army  scheme  he  was  peculiarly  well  fitted  by 
reason  of  his  former  connexion  with  the  Volun- 
teers, and  though  opposed  to  militarism  he  was 
always  a  keen  advocate  of  the  physical  training 
of  the  nation's  manhood.     In  the  burgh  of  Dum- 
barton, to  which  Overtoun  is  adjacent,  his  Lord- 
ship took  a  special  interest.     The  College  Park 
on  which  has  been  ereded  the  truly  monumental 
municipal  buildings,  was  one  of  his  many  valu- 
able gifts  to  the  town.     But,  as  we  have  seen, 
his  charity  was  very  far  from  being  reStrifted  to 
local  objects.     Appeals  for  help  poured  in  upon 
him  in  a  daily  torrent  from  all  quarters.     To  all 
he  gave  personal  attention  and  judged  each  claim 
with   that    shrewdness    and   painstaking   which 
charaderised  him  in  other  walks  of  life.     In  all  he 
did  and  gave  he  felt  his  personal  responsibility. 
What  he  spent  in  private  charity  will  never  be 
known. 

No  man,  however  successful  or  generous,  can 
exped  to  escape  criticism,  and  in  Lord  Over- 
toun's  case  the  outstanding  position  he  occupied 
in  Church  and  State  made  him  an  inevitable 
target  for  certain  others  of  his  countrymen  who 

206 


LORD     OVERTOUN 

had  been  less  fortunate  or  less  deserving  in  their 
lives.  A  number  of  damaging  accusations  were 
collefted  with  careful  ill-will  by  the  late  Mr.  Keir 
Hardie  and  other  agitators  of  the  Labour  party, 
and  the  colledtion  culminated  in  1899  in  an  attack 
which  caused  his  Lordship  and  his  Lordship's 
friends  great  distress.  His  Lordship,  indeed,  was 
deeply  shocked,  as  were  his  friends.  Not  the 
lea§t  part  of  their  digress  was  undoubtedly  due 
to  the  extreme  publicity  achieved  by  the  agitators, 
so  that  the  affair  became  a  matter  for  urgent  dis- 
cussion and  comment  throughout  all  Scotland. 
Li  the  April  of  that  year  a  Strike — fomented  in  all 
probability  by  the  aforesaid  malcontents — occurred 
at  Shawfield  chemical  works,  and  the  cause  of 
the  Strikers  was  taken  up  in  the  columns  of  the 
habour  Leader.  Pandering  to  the  public  appetite 
for  sensationalism,  Mr.  Keir  Hardie  published  and 
afterwards  reprinted  in  convenient  pamphlet  form 
a  series  of  articles  on  the  conditions  of  labour  at 
Shawfield.     It  was  therein  alleged — 

1.  That   Lord   Overtoun's   employees   were 

paid  at  the  rate  of  3d.  to  4d.  (threepence 
to  fourpence)  per  hour. 

2.  That  they  worked  twelve  hours  a  day,  with 

no  time  off  for  meals. 

3.  That  many  of  them  also  worked  seven  days 

per  week. 

4.  That  the  manufa6hire  of  chrome  was  ex- 

ceedingly deleterious  to  health,  workers 
207 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

contrafting  abscesses  which  were  familiarly 
known  as  "  chrome  holes  ". 
5 .  That  sanitary  conditions  at  the  works  were 
well-nigh  as  bad  as  they  could  be,  and 
that  it  was  even  doubtful  if  the  Faftory 
Ads  were  being  complied  with. 

These  disclosures  created  a  mo§t  painful  im- 
pression, the  more  so  in  that  they  were  apparently 
true  in  the  main  and  therefore  could  ehcit  no 
substantial  and  categorical  denial  from  Lord 
Overtoun.  KQs  Lordship  was  accordingly  com- 
pelled to  suifer  for  the  moSt  part  in  silence,  which 
he  did.  At  the  same  time  it  was  with  justice 
recognised  by  the  majority  of  his  fellow-country- 
men, who  displayed  a  notable  exercise  of  charity 
upon  the  trying  occasion,  that  Keir  Hardie  and 
his  associates  were  animated  less  by  a  desire  to 
benefit  the  Shawfield  workers  than  by  eagerness 
to  calumniate  one  who  deservedly  Stood  high  in 
the  esteem  of  his  fellow-citizens.  Isaiah  has  said 
that  in  the  sight  of  God  all  our  righteousness  is  as 
filthy  rags,  but  to  the  better  and  more  respeftable 
kind  of  person  the  public  human  display  of  a 
man's  righteousness  in  this  light,  when  undertaken 
by  another  man,  amounts  to  a  piece  of  uncalled- 
for  malice.  The  unscrupulous  character  of  the 
attack  may  be  judged  by  the  fad  that  one  of  the 
"  eye-opener  "  pamphlets,  as  they  were  Styled, 
contained  a  grossly  objeftionable  and  wholly 
irrelevant  personal  reference  to  a  minister  who 

208 


LORD     OVERTOUN 

had  publicly  protected  against  the  Labour  Leader's 
aspersions  on  Lord  Overtoun.  An  interdid 
against  the  circulation  of  the  pamphlet  was  there- 
fore obtained  from  the  Courts.  Unluckily  it  was 
a  simple  matter  for  the  Labour  party  to  reissue 
the  self-same  pamphlet  with  the  offending  passage 
removed.  As  his  Lordship  did  not  see  his  way 
to  denying  the  accusations,  his  friends  were  un- 
able to  take  the  necessary  §teps  for  their  suppres- 
sion. As  has  already  been  said.  Lord  Overtoun 
maintained  a  dignified  reticence  in  the  face  of  the 
malicious  campaign.  He  took  occasion  merely 
to  point  out  that  he  had  no  personal  knowledge 
of  the  matters  in  question,  as,  owing  to  the  heavy 
demands  of  his  religious  and  public  a6Hvities  and 
his  absorption  in  the  commercial  side  of  the  busi- 
ness, he  had  not  for  many  years  taken  any  part 
in  the  management  of  Shawfield  works,  and  this 
apparently  even  when  a  ^rike  of  workers  was  in 
progress.  It  was  chara6teri§tic,  however,  of  his 
lordship's  energy  and  judgment,  that  once  his 
attention  was  publicly  directed  to  the  State  of 
matters,  no  time  was  loSt  in  effefting  improved 
conditions  at  Shawfield  in  regard  to  wages, 
hours,  Sunday  labour  and  the  health  of  the 
employees,  and  it  is  impossible  to  acquit  the 
Labour  party  of  unworthy,  even  mischievous 
motives,  when  one  reflefts  that  the  same  results 
might  have  been  secured  without  either  scandal 
or  offence  by  means  of  a  courteous  and  private 
communication  to  his  Lordship. 

209  p 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

Happily,  the  outbreak  juSt  then  of  the  South 
African    War    diverted    public    attention    from 
Shawfield,  and  the  regrettable  aflfair  was  soon 
forgotten  in  that  wider  field  of  interest.     During 
the  War  Lord  Overtoun,  though  he  had  felt 
grave  misgiving  at  the  course  of  policy  adopted 
by  Lord  (or  Sir  Alfred,  as  he  then  was)  Milner, 
which  he  regarded  as  calculated  to  provoke  a 
conflift  that  was   probably  inevitable,  warmly 
seconded  every  patriotic  effort.     In  this   con- 
nedtion  it  was  noted  as  a  remarkable  coincidence 
that  the  same  issue  of  the  newspapers  which 
announced  the  passing  away  of  the  great  Christian 
philanthropic  contained  the  news  that  his  former 
traducer,  Mr.  Keir  Hardie,  had  arrived  at  Johannes- 
burg and  had  been  obliged  to  obtain  police  pro- 
teftion  owing  to  showers  of  rotten  eggs,  tomatoes 
and  other  vegetable  missiles  directed  against  his 
person  by  the  loyal  inhabitants  of  the  Gold  Reef 
city,  who  thus  evinced  their  very  natural  abhor- 
rence of  the  Labour  leader's  unpatriotic  condud 
during  the  time  of  the  Empire's  need. 

As  a  mark  of  respeft  to  his  Lordship's  memory 
the  day  of  his  funeral  was  made  an  occasion  of 
public  mourning  in  the  burgh  of  Dumbarton,  all 
work  being  suspended  during  the  progress  of  the 
obsequies.  The  late  peer  having  been  (as  above 
Cated)  Lord-Lieutenant  of  the  coimty,  the  fimeral 
was  of  a  semi-military  character.  A  procession 
fully  half  a  mile  long,  in  which  members  of  all 

2IO 


LORD     OVERTOUN 

Presbyterian  denominations  were  represented, 
followed  the  body  to  its  la§t  re§ting-place  in  Dum- 
barton Cemetery,  where  a  short  service  was  con- 
duced by  the  Rev.  John  MacNeil  (the  celebrated 
evangelistic  preacher,  who  had  long  been  one  of 
Lord  Overtoun*s  proteges,  and  whose  humorous 
sallies  from  the  pulpit  had  made  him  famous 
throughout  Scotland),  and  a  firing-party  of  the 
i§t  Dumbarton  Artillery  Volunteers  discharged 
three  volleys  over  the  grave. 

By  his  will  Lord  Overtoun  left  £23,000  to 
the  various  schemes  of  the  United  Free  Church, 
£12,500  to  the  Glasgow  infirmaries,  £11,000  to 
the  Glasgow  Evangelistic  Association,  £1000  to 
the  National  Bible  Society  and  a  large  number 
of  smaller  bequeSts  to  other  benevolent  objefts, 
totalling  in  all  £63,000  in  the  cause  of  charity 
alone. 

Friends,  be  frank  !     Ye  snuff 

Civet,  I  warrant.     Really  ?     Like  enough  I 

Merely  the  savor's  rareness  ;  any  nose 

May  ravage  with  impunity  a  rose  ; 

Rifle  a  musk-pod  and  'twill  ache  like  yours  ! 

I'd  tell  you  that  same  pungency  ensures 

An  after-gu§t,  but  that  were  overbold. 

Who  would  has  heard  Sordello's  Story  told. 


211 


"  CLAUDIUS  CLEAR  " 

The  Disruption  of  the  Kirk  in  1843  was  even 
more  successful  than  its  leaders  had  dared  to 
hope  for.  There  was  no  parish  that  did  not 
yield  at  leaSl  the  nucleus  of  a  Free  Church  con- 
gregation. Li  some  parishes  ministers  and  con- 
gregations seceded,  in  many  ministers  were  left 
without  congregations  or  congregations  without 
ministers.  There  were  even  presbyteries  that 
seceded  en  bloc.  The  only  considerable  black 
spot  from  the  Free  Church  point  of  view  was 
Aberdeenshire,  which  had  long  been  notorious 
for  its  "  moderatism "  and  where  even  the 
evangelicals  shrank  from  pushing  their  principles 
to  the  point  of  secession.  Thus  in  the  Httle 
Donside  presbytery  of  Alford  few  of  the  people 
"  came  out "  and  none  of  the  ministers.  Dis- 
ruption policy,  however,  required  that  a  Free 
Church  presbytery  of  Alford  should  be  set  up 
without  delay  and  that  the  little  handful  of  the 
faithful  in  each  parish  should  have  the  Status  of 
a  full  pastoral  charge.  To  make  up  the  com- 
plement of  ministers,  two  schoolmasters  were 
ordained — Dr.  Pirie  Smith,  who  became  minister 

212 


CLAUDIUS     CLEAR 

of  Keig,  and  the  Rev.  Harry  NicoU,  who  was 
settled  in  his  native  village  of  Lumsden  as 
minister  of  Auchindoir.  Both  of  these  ex- 
dominies  married  into  the  Clan  Robertson,^  and 
the  eldest  son  in  each  case  was  christened  William 
Robertson.  The  parallel  goes  no  further.  The 
two  worthy  men  were  as  unlike  in  charafter  as 
their  distinguished  sons  after  them  proved  to  be. 
The  Nicoll  family  history  is  interesting  as 
illustrating  the  capriciousness  of  Scottish  sectarian 
divisions.  The  erratic  path  of  the  line  that 
separates  Presbyterian  from  Presbyterian  is  notori- 
ous ;  it  is  not  so  well  understood  that  at  one  time 
there  was  the  same  uncertainty  about  the  divid- 
ing line  between  Presbyterian  and  Episcopalian. 
The  Nicolls  were  pure-bred  Highlanders.  Harry 
Nicoll's  great-grandfather  had  been  "  out "  in 
the  Torty-five  and  had  fought  at  CuUoden. 
Naturally  the  old  rebel  was  an  Episcopalian,  and 
one  at  leaSt  of  his  grandsons,  a  wheelwright  who 
plied  his  trade  at  the  village  of  Monymusk,  carried 
on  the  Episcopalian  tradition  of  the  family.  This 
wheelwright  had  a  clever  son,  Alexander  Nicoll 
(1793-1828),  who  went  from  Aberdeen  Uni- 
versity to  Balliol  as  a  Snell  exhibitioner,  took 
orders  in  the  Church  of  England,  and  at  the  age 
of  twenty-nine  became  Regius  Professor  of 
Hebrew  at  Oxford  and  a  canon  of  Christ  Church. 

^  Robertson  blood  seems  to  make  for  intelleftual  ability,  Glad- 
stone and  Rainy  both  came  of  the  Robertsons  of  Kindeace.  Mrs. 
Nicoll  was  one  of  the  Robertsons  of  Struan,  the  branch  to  which 
Robertson  of  Brighton  belonged. 

213 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

But  Harry  Nicoll's  father,  a  younger  brother  of 
the  wheelwright,  who  was  a  small  farmer  at 
Lumsden,  deserted  the  old  faith  and  conformed 
to  the  Kirk.  Harry  was  brought  up  in  the 
Moderate  school  of  Presbyterianism,  but  some- 
how— the  circumstances  are  unknown — came  to 
profess  Evangelical  opinions  while  a  Student  at 
Aberdeen.  He  became  parish  schoolmaster  at 
Auchindoir  and  a  licentiate  of  the  Kirk.  At  the 
Disruption  he  resigned  his  schoolmaStership  and 
threw  in  his  lot  with  the  Free  Church.  It  is  no 
refleftion  on  his  sincerity  to  suggest  that  his 
decision  was  influenced  by  his  ambition  to 
exchange  his  desk  for  a  pulpit,  which  he  had 
no  prospe6t  of  reaUsing  if  he  remained  in  the 
Establishment. 

A  Scottish  country  parson  has  fewer  oppor- 
tunities for  cultivating  eccentricity  than  his 
EngUsh  brother.  His  ecclesiastical  discipline 
sees  to  that.  But  within  the  permitted  limits  old 
Harry  NicoU  was  certainly  a  queer  fish.  He  was 
taciturn  and  passionless — Strange  qualities  in  a 
Highlander.  Twice  each  Sunday  he  would  edify 
his  flock  with  auStere  expositions  of  orthodox 
evangelical  doftrine.  He  had  a  formidable  theory 
of  preaching  which  put  a  Strid  ban  on  anecdotes, 
poetical  quotations,  the  firSt  personal  pronoun, 
perorations  and  everything  that  savoured  of  an 
emotional  appeal.  He  was  at  great  pains  to 
make  his  sermons  conform  to  his  ideal.  Out  of 
the  pulpit  he  never  spoke  of  religion  even  to  his 

214 


CLAUDIUS     CLEAR 

own  family,  though  he  might  express  an  academic 
opinion  on  a  theological  question.  But  generally 
he  seems  to  have  regarded  talking  of  any  kind 
as  a  wa^te  of  precious  time  that  ought  to  be 
devoted  to  reading.  For  Harry  NicoU  loved 
books  with  a  passion  that  in  the  case  of  a  less 
respeftable  objed  would  have  been  regarded  as 
wicked,  or  even  insane.  In  order  to  gratify  it 
he  Starved  himself.  That  was  a  small  matter, 
for  he  was  a  man  of  tough  constitution.  The 
wicked  thing  was  that  he  also  Starved  his  young 
wife  and  family.  Poor  Mrs.  NicoU !  Her 
husband's  wedding  gift  to  her  had  been  an 
Italian  edition  of  ArioSto.  When  after  a  few 
years  of  bookish  married  life  she  lay  on  her 
death-bed,  he  was  unremitting  in  his  solicitude 
for  her  comfort  and  read  Madame  Guyon  to  her 
for  hours  every  day.  When  she  died  he  bowed 
quietly  to  the  will  of  Heaven  and  consoled  himself 
by  buying  more  books  than  ever.  At  his  death 
in  1 891,  in  his  eightieth  year,  his  library  consisted 
of  17,000  volumes,  for  which  his  wife  and  three 
of  the  five  children  she  bore  him  had  paid  with 
their  lives,  and  his  two  surviwng  children  had 
contributed  their  share  in  broken  health. 

An  idyllic  presentment  of  the  old  bookworm 
has  been  given  by  his  son  in  A/y  Father,  which 
is  perhaps  the  cleverest  thing  Robertson  Nicoll 
ever  wrote.  It  was  produced  as  a  counterblast 
to  Mr.  Gosse's  Father  and  Son,  and  journalistic 
acumen  combined  happily  with  filial  piety  to 

215 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

falsify  the  record.  It  is  quite  true  that  the  old 
manse  at  Lumsden  was  free  from  the  nightmare 
fanaticism  that  brooded  over  the  Gosse  house- 
hold. No  bookworm  was  ever  a  bigot,  and  Mr. 
NicoU's  gtrid  evangelical  orthodoxy  seems  to 
have  coexisted  with  a  deep-seated  scepticism. 
His  children  had  to  perform  their  proper  Sunday 
tasks,  but  of  direft  religious  in§tru6lion  from  their 
father  they  had  none.  The  conventional  rule 
that  only  religious  books  were  permissible  on 
Sunday  was  liberally  interpreted  so  as  to  include 
Renan,  Strauss,  Colenso  and  other  respeftable 
rationalists,  whom  the  old  gentleman  did  by 
no  means  abhor.  No  book  in  the  wonderful 
library  was  forbidden  to  the  children,  and  equally 
no  book  was  ever  prescribed  for  reading  except 
The  Arabian  Nights,  Don  ^luixote  and  The  Pilgrim's 
Progress,  which  Mr.  NicoU  highly  esteemed  as 
providing  the  infant  mind  with  the  be§t  basis  for 
its  literary  education. 

All  this  was  very  well,  but  little  children 
cannot  be  nourished  and  made  happy  on  books 
and  broadmindedness.  Mrs.  NicoU  left  four 
living,  the  eldest  only  seven  years  old.  Looking 
back  on  the  life  at  the  manse  Robertson  NicoU, 
when  he  was  not  writing  for  publication,  con- 
fessed that  their  father's  devouring  selfishness 
made  their  chUdhood  thoroughly  miserable. 
They  were  by  iaheritance  delicate  children. 
They  were  not  properly  fed.  The  only  care 
they  received  was  from  the  overburdened  hands 

216 


CLAUDIUS     CLEAR 

of  an  old  Highland  servant  of  all  work,  whose 
kitchen  was  their  only  refuge  in  the  long  winter 
evenings.  For  though  the  manse  was  small — 
not  much  more  than  a  superior  cottage — three 
apartments  in  addition  to  the  Study  were  appro- 
priated by  the  monstrous,  cancerous  growth 
of  printed  matter  that  covered  every  wall  from 
floor  to  ceiling,  and  filled  great  double  bookcases 
through  the  middle  of  each  room.  And,  though 
not  at  all  harsh,  Mr.  Nicoll  was  the  reverse  of 
an  amiable  man.  His  reticence  was  chilling, 
and  when  engaged  on  his  interminable  Studies 
he  was  extremely  irritable  and  sensitive  to  noise. 
The  children's  play  muSt  ever  be  hushed  le§t 
their  father  be  disturbed  in  the  all-important  task 
of  converting  himself  into  a  walking  encyclo- 
paedia that  nobody  would  ever  consult.  As 
they  grew  older  the  children  developed  a  natural 
sense  of  grievance.  There  was  no  adhial  rebellion, 
only  a  bitter  resentment  at  the  old  man's  callous 
egoism  which  they  carried  with  them  all  their 
days.  "  I  always  feel ",  said  Robertson  Nicoll 
when  a  man  of  fifty,  "  that  I  was  defrauded  of 
my  youth — there  was  so  little  sunshine  in  it — 
far  too  little." 

But  William  Robertson  Nicoll  was  his  father's 
son.  Nobody  who  has  been  brought  up  among 
books,  however  much  he  may  have  had  to  suffer 
for  the  privilege,  can  ever  be  anything  but 
bookish.  William  acquired  from  his  father  the 
art  of  reading,  enormously,  rapidly  and  retentively, 

217 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

and,  like  his  father,  he  always  felt,  as  Sir  James 
Barrie  has  put  it,  that  the  next  be§t  thing  to  a 
good  book  is  a  bad  book.  Where  he  differed 
from  his  father  and  raised  the  flag  of  rebellion 
was  that  at  an  early  age  he  made  up  his  mind 
that  the  fir§t  objeft  in  reading  a  good  book  and 
the  only  objed:  in  reading  a  bad  one  is  to  convert 
them  both  into  hard  cash.  After  a  preparatory 
year  at  Aberdeen  Grammar  School  he  matricu- 
lated at  Aberdeen  University  at  the  tender  age 
of  fifteen,  and  led  the  meagre  life  of  the  Scottish 
Student  of  the  old  days.  A  bursary  of  /|ii  a 
year  paid  his  fees,  and  los.  a  week  found  him 
in  bed  and  board.  He  bore  his  poverty  Stoically, 
but  it  is  to  his  credit  that  he  never  pretended 
that  he  liked  it  or  got  any  benefit  from  it.  He 
was  not  a  distinguished  Student.  Although  he 
had  a  poor  purse  and  a  weak  cheSt,  the  senti- 
mental role  of  the  "  lad  o'  pairts  "  did  not  appeal 
to  him  in  the  leaSt.  He  worked  no  more  at 
classics,  mathematics  and  philosophy  than  on  a 
close  calculation  was  Stri6i:ly  necessary  for  his 
degree.  But  he  was  not  idle.  It  was  remarked 
with  disapproval  that  he  spent  hours  every  day 
in  the  Corn  Exchange  Reading  Room,  perusing 
with  care  the  current  numbers  of  newspapers 
and  reviews,  and  making  exhaustive  researches 
into  the  bound  volumes.  There  was  nothing 
random  about  these  Studies.  The  lad  wanted 
money,  and  his  only  means  of  getting  it  was  his 
pen. 

218 


CLAUDIUS     CLEAR 

Being  an  Aberdonian  and  a  realist  he  had  no 
high  notions  about  literature  as  a  HveUhood, 
and  none  of  that  innocent  conceit  of  mo§t  young 
men  with  Hterary  ambitions,  who,  like  George 
Primrose,  thiak  they  have  nothing  to  do  but  sit 
down  and  "  dress  up  three  paradoxes  with  some 
ingenuity  ".  With  a  hard  sagacity  far  beyond 
his  years  he  saw  clearly  (how  few  of  us  do  !)  that 
periodical  literature  is  a  commodity  like  soap  or 
cotton  piece-goods,  and  that  if  you  don't  know 
the  market  you  are  not  Hkely  to  sell  much. 
Market  conditions,  as  he  summed  them  up  from 
his  Study  of  the  press,  were  these.  There  was 
no  demand  whatsoever  for  anything  that  with 
propriety  could  be  described  as  thought.  (This 
was  a  great  comfort,  for  thinking  takes  time,  and 
in  journalism  more  than  in  anything  else  time  is 
money.)  On  the  other  hand,  there  was  a  very 
substantial  demand  for  palatable  and  predigeSted 
information.  Willie  NicoU,  though  only  in  his 
teens,  was  confident  that  he  could  deliver  the 
goods,  and  he  judged  rightly.  For,  Strange  to 
say,  old  Harry  NicoU,  who  always  took  six 
months  to  review  a  book  for  the  Aberdeen  Journal^ 
had  taught  his  son  not  only  how  to  read  but 
how  to  write.  "  My  father  was  a  connoisseur  in 
Style,  and  used  to  talk  much  on  the  subjed.  He 
disliked  high-flown  writing  such  as  that  of 
Christopher  North.  .  .  .  What  he  asked  for  in 
a  writer  was  clearness,  limpidity,  short  sentences. 
His  favourite  Stylists  were  Hazlitt  and  Newman." 

219 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

Willie  pondered  these  things  in  his  heart.  He 
invariably  wrote  short  sentences  that  always 
seemed  to  be  clear  and  limpid,  even  when  they 
were  not.  The  consequence  was  that  when,  at 
the  age  of  nineteen,  he  entered  upon  his  theo- 
logical course  at  the  Aberdeen  Free  Church 
College,  he  was  already  an  experienced  and 
successful  journalist.  It  is  true  that  his  work 
was  of  a  humble  sort.  The  local  press  and  one 
or  two  popular  miscellanies  of  fad;  and  fidion 
published  from  Dundee  made  up  his  market. 
The  pay  was  poor,  very  poor,  but  our  Willie's 
motto  was  small  profits  and  quick  returns.  When 
he  sat  down  in  his  humble  lodging  to  write  an 
axticle  or  a  "  poem  " — ^for,  alas  !  he  could  rhyme 
— ^he  always  did  so  with  the  assurance  that  he 
would  sell  it.  In  the  days  of  his  greatness  he 
could  boaft  that  since  he  firSt  put  pen  to  paper 
he  had  never  had  but  one  article  and  one  poem 
rejefted.  During  his  four  years  at  the  theological 
college  his  clientele  increased.  He  joined  the 
tegular  ftafF  of  the  Aberdeen  Journal,  to  which  he 
contributed,  among  other  matter,  a  weekly  column 
on  things  in  general  over  the  appropriate  signa- 
ture of  "  Quid  Nunc ".  He  wrote  for  the 
Scotsman,  the  Literarj  World,  Once  a  Week  and 
Chamber's  Journal,  which  was  then  under  the 
editorship  of  James  Payn.  (NicoU  always  retained 
a  Strong  regard  for  Payn,  and  wrote  a  very 
approving  "  Claudius  Clear "  letter  about  him 
when  he  died.)     In  addition,  he  found  time  to 

220 


CLAUDIUS     clear" 

leffture  on  English  literature  at  a  young  ladies* 
academy,  and  was  always  willing  to  aft  as  private 
tutor  to  anybody  who  would  pay  him  a  shilling 
an  hour.  In  this  way  he  did  more  than  support 
himself.  When  he  passed  out  of  the  college  in 
the  spring  of  1874  he  had  £200  in  the  bank. 
Unlike  moSt  "  probationers  "  he  had  not  long  to 
wait  for  a  church.  Within  a  few  weeks  he  had 
received  calls  from  Dufftown  and  Rhynie.  He 
elefted  for  Dufftown  and  was  ordained  in  the 
following  November,  being  then  twenty-three 
years  of  age.  Barely  three  years  later  he  was 
translated  to  Kelso,  one  of  the  mo§t  desirable 
Free  Church  charges  in  the  south  of  Scotland. 

NicoU's  rapid  initial  success  in  the  Church 
was  due  to  the  same  sagacity  that  had  already 
enabled  him  to  win  many  a  guinea  by  his  pen 
and  was  later  to  make  him  a  commanding  figure 
in  British  journalism.  He  could  always  crowd 
the  pews  juSt  as  he  could  always  sell  an  article. 
To  him  the  preacher's  problem  and  the  journal- 
ist's were  substantially  the  same — ^to  find  a  market 
and  develop  it.  This,  he  noted,  was  not  to 
be  done  by  cheap-jack  displays  of  pulpiteering. 
Picking  up  business  off  the  Street  is  not  market- 
ing. Robertson  NicoU  had  nothing  but  con- 
tempt for  "  popular  "  preachers.  His  methods 
were  subtler.  He  Started  with  the  advantage  of 
having  a  multitude  of  interests  and  no  enthusiasms 
— not  even  the  enthusiasm  of  youth.  Unlike 
most  of  his  fellow -Students  he  was  perfedly 

221 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

immune  from  the  effeds  of  the  new  theological 
wine  that  Robertson  Smith  had  brought  from 
Germany.  He  drank  it  all  in  with  a  ju§t  apprecia- 
tion of  its  flavour,  but  it  did  not  fire  his  blood. 
For  Robertson  Smith  personally  he  never  seems 
to  have  had  much  liking,  and  was  one  of  the  few 
young  ministers  who  voted  for  his  deprivation. 
Smith  never  forgave  him.  They  had  known 
each  other  from  childhood,  and  Smith  felt  that 
"  auld  lang  syne  "  at  lea^  should  have  ensured 
him  NicoU's  support.  But — dating  back  it  may 
be  to  those  very  days  of  childhood — there  was 
on  the  part  of  NicoU  some  secret  antipathy 
which  all  his  life  rendered  him  unable  to  refer 
to  Robertson  Smith  without  a  hint  of  deprecia- 
tion. It  would  be  a  mistake  to  Stress  the  personal 
equation,  for  in  any  case  the  things  Robertson 
Smith  Stood  for  never  counted  high  in  the  Nicoll 
scale  of  values.  He  had  a  marvellous  eye  for 
appraising  a  religious  creed  and  its  quality  as  a 
going  human  concern.  In  this  respeft  he  found 
liberal  theology  wanting.  It  might  invoke  the 
sacred  name  of  Truth,  but  what  is  Truth  ?  And 
in  any  case,  what  is  there  to  show  that  people  are 
interested  in  it?  He  had  no  prejudice  againSt 
liberal  theology,  neither  had  he  any  illusions 
about  it.  It  did  not  in  his  judgment  contain  the 
elements  that  make  for  really  successful  preaching, 
whereas  orthodoxy  did. 

Now  beware  of  misjudging  him.    His  was  not 
the  cynical  choice  of  the  thing  that  pays.     There 

222 


CLAUDIUS     CLEAR 

was  never  anything  of  the  cynic  about  Robertson 
Nicoll.     Fond  of  money  as  he  was — and  not 
even  his  mo^  devoted  friends  would  deny  him 
that  weakness — he  would  never  preach  or  write 
anything  that  he  did  not  after  a  fashion  beUeve. 
One  rather  hesitates  to  describe  him  as  a  religious 
man,  for  that  suggefts  too  much ;  but  he  knew 
what  religion  was,  and  he  certainly  had  a  theology 
— a  version  of  Puritan  mysticism  about  which  he 
was  capable  of  writing  cantankerous  letters  to 
any  clerical  friend  who  said  he  could  not  under- 
stand it.     Hence  his  curious  partiality  for  small, 
old  and  narrow  Puritan  sefts,  which  fir§t  mani- 
fested itself  in  his  earlier  Student  days  at  Aberdeen. 
The  good  woman  with  whom  he  lodged  belonged 
to  the  Original  Secession  body,^  and  with  her 
he  worshipped  rather  than  with  his  own  denomina- 
tion.    The  habit  persisted  even  in  the  sophisti- 
cated "  Claudius  Clear  ",  whose  favourite  Sunday 
recreation  was  attendance  at  Particular  Baptist 
chapels.     If  his  attitude  towards  old-world  ortho- 
doxy was  not  exaftly  faith,  it  was  at  leaSt  one  of 
genuine  seSthetic  appreciation  which  did  almoSt 
as  well ;   and  the  eye  of  the  connoisseur  is  not 
the  less  loving  for  being  sensible  of  market  values. 
The  moment  at  which  he  passed  out  of  the  college 
was  opportune  for  displaying  his  pra6Hcal  insight. 
In  1874  Scotland  was  in  the  throes  of  the  Moody 
and  Sankey  revival.     It  does  not  appear  that 
Nicoll  was  much  impressed  by  Moody's  preach- 

1  This  remnant  of  the  "  Auld  Licht  Anti-Burghers  "  Still  exists. 
223 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

ing,  and  certainly  Moody's  theology  was  not  of 
a  kind  to  appeal  to  him.  But  there  was  the 
broad  faft  of  the  religious  quickening  which  no 
preacher  who  knew  his  business  could  think  of 
ignoring.  The  question  was  how  beSt  to  recog- 
nise it.  Ordinary  men  answered  it  by  ineffedtive 
imitations  of  Moody.  Not  so  NicoU.  He  had 
noted  that  by  far  the  mo^  consistently  efFedive 
exponent  of  evangelical  orthodoxy  of  the  day 
was  Charles  Haddon  Spurgeon,  and  accordingly, 
on  taking  up  his  firSt  pastoral  employment  as 
locum  tenens  in  a  country  parish,  he  made  an 
intensive  Study  of  Spurgeon's  sermons.  The 
gratifying  result  was  that  within  two  or  three 
months  congregations  were  competing  to  secure 
his  services.  The  soundness  of  his  method  was 
proved  by  the  unbroken  success  of  the  eleven 
years  of  his  ministry. 

Nicoll's  clerical  life  was  closed  abruptly  by 
the  break-down  of  his  health  in  1885,  when  he 
began  to  show  signs  of  the  malady  that  had 
already  carried  off  his  mother,  his  sister  and  his 
brother.^  He  resigned  his  charge  at  Kelso  and 
went  to  live  at  Dawlish.  There  be  began  to 
mend,  but  the  medical  verdift  was  that  he  muSt 
never  on  any  account  resume  preaching.  Thence- 
forward his  energies  muSt  be  content  with  the 
pen  for  an  outlet.  To  another  man  this  would 
have  been  a  sad  blow,  but  in  Nicoll's  case  it  was 

*  Henry  Nicoll,  editor  of  the  Aberdeen  'Evening  Gazette,  died  at  his 
brother's  manse  at  Kelso,  January  29,  1885,  aged  twent)'-seven. 

224 


CLAUDIUS     CLEAR 

merely  the  anticipation  of  a  decision  that  would 
have  been  forced  upon  him  sooner  or  later.  For 
during  the  years  of  his  pastorate  the  adivity  and 
scope  of  his  pen  had  Steadily  increased.  Shortly 
after  settling  at  Kelso  he  became  reader  to  an 
Edinburgh  firm  of  publishers,  Messrs.  Macniven 
and  Wallace,  for  whom  he  projeded  and  edited 
a  very  successful  series  entitled  the  Household 
hibrary  of  Exposition.  He  also  persuaded  Messrs. 
Sonnenschein  to  Start  under  his  editorship  a 
homiletic  monthly  called  the  Contemporary  Pulpit. 
He  wrote  several  books,  including  a  Eife  of 
Christ,  which  was  and  Still  is  a  beSt  seller  of  its 
kind,  and  a  really  meritorious  life  of  Tennyson. 
During  one  of  his  visits  to  Edinburgh  he  met 
Mr.  Hodder  of  Hodder  and  Stoughton,  and  loSt 
no  time  in  propounding  a  scheme  for  a  series 
to  be  entitled  the  Clerical  hibrary.  It  was  a  good 
scheme.  Messrs.  Hodder  and  Stoughton  adopted 
it  and  NicoU  carried  it  through.  Next  Messrs. 
Hodder  and  Stoughton  made  him  editor  of  The 
Expositor,  which  he  continued  to  condud  as  a 
beloved  parergon  for  the  reSt  of  his  life. 

Dawlish,  where  he  recovered  some  of  his 
health,  settled  Robertson  Nicoll's  fate,  and  inci- 
dentally, when  one  thinks  of  the  political  influence, 
overt  and  secret,  that  he  subsequently  attained, 
it  settled  some  at  leaSt  of  the  fate  of  the  British 
Empire  a  generation  later.  He  was  in  close 
touch  with  Messrs.  Hodder  and  Stoughton,  who 
at  the  moment  had  the  idea  of  taking  over  the 

225  Q 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

old  British  G^mrterlj  Keview,  discarding  its  speci- 
fically CongregationaliSt  character  and  converting 
it  into  a  general  Nonconformist  monthly  with 
NicoU  as  editor.  When  that  plan  failed,  Nicoll 
at  once  submitted  an  idea  of  his  own  for  a  Non- 
conformi^  weekly  on  entirely  new  lines.  After 
due  consideration  Messrs.  Hodder  and  Stoughton 
decided  to  risk  it.  The  venture  involved  a  good 
deal  of  money,  but  their  experience  of  Nicoll  was 
an  assurance  of  success.  The  assurance  was 
made  doubly  sure  by  the  fad  that  the  hard-bitten 
Aberdonian  undertook  to  work  without  salary 
until  the  paper  began  to  pay. 

All  the  same  the  British  Weekly  projed:  as 
finally  settled  was  a  severe  te§t  of  faith.  For 
though  Nicoll  agreed  to  work  for  nothing,  he 
exaded  his  price,  which  was  that  he  should  have 
an  absolutely  free  hand  in  the  condud  of  the 
paper.  And  that  was  a  heavy  price  for  any 
honest  merchant  adventurers  in  the  publishing 
line  to  be  required  to  pay.  Though  he  had 
shown  remarkable  aptitude  for  journalism,  Nicoll 
had  never  been  more  than  a  half-timer.  He  was 
only  thirty-five  years  of  age.  He  was  a  chronic 
invalid,  who  had  to  do  a  large  part  of  his  work 
in  bed.  He  was  a  Scotsman  whose  total  residence 
in  England  was  reckoned  in  weeks,  and  he  had 
a  full  share  of  the  Presbyterian  Scot's  antipathy 
to  English  Nonconformity.  "  If  I  had  to  §tay 
here  ",  he  wrote  from  Dawlish,  "  I  should  be 
forced    to    go    to    the    English    Qiurch.     No 

226 


CLAUDIUS     clear'* 

educated  man  could  Stand  the  Dissenters."  His 
political  opinions  were  equally  unfortunate.  He 
professed  to  be  a  Liberal,  but  he  was  bitterly- 
opposed  to  Home  Rule.  He  detected  Gladstone 
and  adored  Chamberlain.  Such  was  the  man 
who,  in  1886,  proposed  to  edit  a  popular  weekly 
that  should  be  an  organ  of  Nonconformity  and 
Glad§tonian  Liberalism. 

The  British  Weekly  did  pay.  Its  success,  not 
merely  in  circulation  and  profits  but  in  material 
influence,  has  established  Robertson  Nicoll  with 
Alfred  Harmsworth  and  W.  T.  Stead  as  one  of 
the  three  great  journalists  of  the  closing  nine- 
teenth century.  He  had  not  the  imperial  genius 
of  Harmsworth  for  exploitation  that  knew  no 
tradition,  no  law,  no  morality  but  its  own.  He 
had  neither  the  invention  nor  the  piduresqueness 
of  Stead,  Still  less  had  he  Stead's  disconcerting 
moral  fervour.  But  he  had  more  humanity  than 
Harmsworth,  more  sagacity  than  Stead,  and  far 
more  culture  than  both  of  them  put  together. 
Harmsworth  built  his  great  enterprise  upon  a 
very  simple  piece  of  observation,  viz.  that  owing 
to  the  Education  Ad  of  1872  a  large  proportion 
of  the  adult  population  of  London  in  the  'nineties 
were  able  to  read  ordinary  words  of  two  or  even 
three  syllables,  that  in  due  course  the  whole 
adult  population  would  be  in  the  same  happy 
condition,  and  that  in  the  meantime  this  educated 
democracy  had  nothing  to  pradise  its  reading 
on.     Nicoll,  when  he  Started  the  British  Weekly 

zz-j 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

a  decade  earlier  than  the  Daily  Mail,  noted  a 
similar  but  less  depressing  fadt.  The  icy  Puritan- 
ism that  bound  Nonconformity  was  beginning 
to  break  up.  The  effeds  of  the  removal  of  the 
civil  disabilities  of  Dissenters  were  becoming 
manifest.  Chapel  folk  were  beginning  to  look 
about  and  take  an  interest  in  things  and  even 
ideas.  They  were  tenacious  of  their  old  beliefs 
and  prejudices,  yet  they  wanted  to  be  told,  decently 
and  in  a  way  they  could  understand,  something 
of  the  general  intelleftual  life  of  the  time.  Being 
human  they  could  be  impressed  by  the  "  Sttmt  ". 
That  noble  journaHStic  device  had  juSt  been 
invented  by  Stead,  and  Nicoll  was  quick  to 
appreciate  its  value — indeed,  if  Stead  had  not 
invented  it  he  would  have  invented  it.  At  any 
rate  he  Started  the  British  Weekly  on  one,  a  religious 
census  of  London  which  excited  a  gratifying 
amount  of  lively  discussion.  This  he  followed 
up  by  having  each  week  an  article  by  a  "  big 
name  ",  but  he  did  not  continue  it  long.  His 
eye  was  never  off  the  weekly  returns,  and  he 
marked  and  inwardly  digested  the  fad  that  the 
circulation  of  the  paper,  so  far  from  rising, 
a6hially  dropped  200  in  the  week  he  published 
an  article  by  R.  L.  Stevenson.  Thenceforward 
he  knew  the  limitations  of  the  "  Stunt "  as  well 
as  its  value.  As  to  big  names,  the  British  Weekly 
would  in  future  have  none  but  those  the  editor 
made  big,  with  his  own  as  the  biggeSt  of  all. 
Dr.  Darlow,  whose  opinion  is  entitled  to  the 
228 


CLAUDIUS     clear" 

greatest  resped,  has  said  that  for  all  his  know- 
ledge and  insight  Robertson  NicoU  never  really 
understood  the  Nonconformists.  This  is  quite 
true  if  understanding  be  assumed  to  include 
sympathy  and  inStindive  liking,  of  which  Nicoll 
assuredly  had  none.  "  No  educated  man  could 
Stand  the  Dissenters."  That  casual  remark, 
made  when  he  firSt  came  to  live  in  England, 
revealed  an  attitude  that  could  never  be  changed, 
however  skilfully  it  might  be  disguised.  For, 
with  the  beSt  will  in  the  world,  no  Presbyterian 
Scot — and  Nicoll  was  a  thorough  Scot  and  a 
Presbyterian  in  grain — can  ever  bring  himself 
to  feel  kindly  towards  an  English  Dissenter. 
There  are  several  reasons  for  this,  but  in  the  main 
it  is  the  dissidence  of  English  Dissent  that  repels 
him,  its  apparent  defiance  of  the  national  Kultur, 
a  reproach  that,  in  spite  of  bitter  feuds  and 
secessions,  can  never  be  caSt  up  againSt  Scottish 
Presbyterianism.  Nevertheless,  under  the  benign 
influence  of  the  aphorism  that  "  business  is 
business  ",  Robertson  Nicoll  soon  learned  to  be 
tolerant  of  what  he  did  not  like,  and  even  if  he 
could  not  achieve  sympathy  it  cannot  be  said 
that  he  lacked  an  understanding  of  his  Non- 
conformist public  sufficient  for  all  the  praftical 
purposes  he  had  in  mind.  And  on  the  whole 
it  is  to  the  advantage  of  him  who  drives  fat  oxen 
that  he  should  not  himself  be  fat.  There  is  a 
most  revealing  letter  written  before  the  British 
Weekly  was  a  month  old. 

229 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

"  It  is  a  great  miftake  of  W.  ",  he  writes,  "  to 
think  that  he  has  nothing  to  learn  from  Spurgeon. 
And  that  attitude  makes  Spurgeon  angry  and 
aHenated.  We  cannot  overlook  fa6i;s — and  the 
fa6t  is  that  the  Spurgeonic  type  of  preaching  is 
the  only  kind  that  moves  the  democracy.  I 
know  there  are  very  repulsive  elements  about  all 
that  set  of  people.  But  I  know,  and  so  do  you, 
that  they  are  the  salt  of  the  earth.  My  great 
desire  is  to  treat  them  with  sympathy  and  resped, 
and  so  be  able  to  teach  them  by  degrees  more 
charitable  views." 

The  quality  of  the  writer's  sympathy  is 
diStinftly  Strained,  but  his  understanding  is  acute 
enough. 

For  a  year  this  frail  creature  with  his  broken 
lung  carried  on  the  British  Weekly  single-handed. 
He  was  his  own  Staff  and  his  own  chief  and  by 
far  most  trusted  contributor.  It  was  only  when 
success  was  assured  that  he  accepted  the  luxury 
of  an  assistant  editor.  Yet,  while  the  paper 
always  bore  the  mark  of  a  single  directing  and 
informing  personality,  it  never  had  the  shabby- 
genteel  appearance  of  the  one-man  journalistic 
show.  It  was  an  achievement  worthy  of  rank 
with  La  Tour  d'Auvergne's  exploit,  though  it 
did  not  always  excite  the  same  unmixed  admira- 
tion. For  as  time  went  on  and  NicoU's  pen 
invaded  other  journals  than  his  own,  the  idea 
got  about  that  there  was  some  sinister  purpose 
behind   all  this   aftivity.     Andrew  Lang   (who 

230 


CLAUDIUS     clear" 

should  certainly  have  been  the  la^  person  to 
ca5t  a  ^one)  broke  into  satirical  triolets  in  the 
Morning  Post,  and  Conan  Doyle  in  the  Daily 
Chronicle  accused  Nicoll  of  being  the  head  of  a 
va^  log-rolling  indusT:r}\  The  culprit  was  not 
perturbed.  "  One  has  vexatious  things,"  he 
once  wrote  to  a  friend  early  in  his  career,  "  but 
I  do  not  get  into  tempers  as  a  rule ;  it  is  so 
exhausting.  No  ;  the  secret  of  tranquiUity  is 
*  adopt  the  recumbent  position '."  To  Conan 
Doyle's  choler  he  replied  mildly  that  he  reviewed 
books  because  it  was  an  agreeable  way  of  making 
a  Httle  money.  And  he  added  with  a  sly  humihty : 
"  I  have  no  doubt  that  Dr.  Doyle  has  received 
more  for  one  novel  than  I  have  ever  received 
for  all  the  criticisms  I  have  ever  written.  Non 
equidem  invideo  :  miror  ma^s^  Probably  he  was 
over-mode^  about  his  profits.  In  his  later 
years,  at  any  rate,  Robertson  Nicoll  could  and 
did  command  vet)'-  large  prices.  But  it  was 
gtridly  true  that  he  never  had  any  more  sinister 
objed:  in  writing  than  to  get  paid  for  what  he 
wrote. 

As  an  editor  Nicoll  has  been  credited  with 
being  a  great  discoverer  of  literary  talent,  and 
there  is  no  doubt  that  he  Hked  to  be  thought  of 
as  one  who  could  make  reputations  at  will.  But 
his  success  in  that  way,  though  considerable,  has 
been  exaggerated  chiefly  owing  to  the  skill  with 
which  he  exploited  that  travesty  of  Scottish 
character    known   as   the   "Kailyard    School". 

231 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

But  he  did  not  discover  Barrie — Frederick  Green- 
wood has  that  honour — and  he  did  not  discover 
Crockett,  though  he  was  quick  to  appropriate 
them  both  to  his  own  purposes.  The  only- 
member  of  the  Kailyard  trio  that  he  did  a6hially 
unearth  was  "  Ian  Maclaren  ",  and  his  manner 
of  doing  so  was  charafteri^tic.  The  Rev.  John 
Maclaren  Watson,  minister  of  Sefton  Park  Pres- 
byterian Church,  Liverpool,  enjoyed  a  high 
reputation  as  a  preacher.  NicoU  asked  him  to 
contribute  some  articles  to  The  Expositor  and, 
never  having  met  him,  invited  him  to  Hampftead 
to  discuss  the  matter.  Fir^  impressions  were 
not  favourable.  "  He  Stayed  with  us  three 
nights  ",  Nicoll  wrote  to  a  friend,  "  and  was  very 
pleasant,  but  somehow  I  did  not  take  to  him  as 
much  as  I  expefted  ;  he  was  too  cynical  for  me." 
But  the  cynical  fellow  could  tell  a  good  senti- 
mental Story,  and  his  hoSt  took  to  him  enough  to 
leave  him  no  peace  until  he  promised  to  write 
some  articles  on  the  same  lines  for  the  British 
Weekly.  The  result  (after  one  or  two  false  Starts) 
was  the  profitable  welter  of  sentiment  known  in 
book-form  as  The  Bonnie  Brier  Bush.  After  that 
Nicoll  ceased  to  have  qualms  about  Watson's 
cynicism.  Other  people  may  find  it  less  easy  to 
forgive  Nicoll  his  charity. 

The  only  other  "  discoveries  "  that  can  fairly 
be  claimed  for  Robertson  Nicoll  were  Hale 
White  and  Dr.  R.  J.  Campbell.  The  former  he 
did  not  exa6Uy  discover,  but  he  saved  him  from 

232 


CLAUDIUS     CLEAR 

obscurity  and  raised  him  to  something  like  a 
vogue,  which  was  a  work  of  merit.  Whether 
"  Mark  Rutherford  "  deserves  all  the  fine  words 
that  "  Claudius  Clear  "  has  lavished  on  him  is  for 
later  writers  to  determine.  The  interesting  thing 
here  is  that  "  Mark  Rutherford "  evoked  the 
nearest  approach  to  a  real  enthusiasm  that  Nicoll 
ever  betrayed.  The  case  of  Dr.  Campbell  was 
quite  different.  He  was  Started  frankly  as  a 
"  Stunt ",  and  when,  after  a  short  and  dazzling  run, 
he  developed  in  ways  undreamt  of  in  the  Nicoll 
philosophy  there  was  a  good  deal  of  unpleasant- 
ness. For  Nicoll  was  moSt  intolerant  in  every- 
thing that  touched  the  curious  blend  of  theology 
and  journalism  that  was  his  main  business.  The 
man  who  did  not  conform  to  his  special  canons 
in  that  regard  might  be  used,  but  there  was  a 
private  black  mark  registered  againSt  him  that 
sooner  or  later  would  become  effe6tive,  and  which 
represented  not  only  disapproval  but  personal 
distaste.  Reference  has  already  been  made  to 
Nicoll's  alienation  from  Robertson  Smith.  There 
were  other  able  men  in  his  own  denomination 
towards  whom  he  showed  a  like  antipathy.  For 
A.  B.  Bruce,  a  great  scholar  and  a  great  Christian, 
he  seldom  had  anything  but  a  sneer.  To  T.  M. 
Lindsay  he  was  respedful  but  distant.  Henry 
Drummond  he  utterly  despised,  though  he  was 
not  above  taking  advantage  of  the  popularity 
of  Natural  Law  in  the  Spiritual  World.  When 
planning  the  firSt  number  of  the  British  Weekly 

233 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

he  asked  Drummond  for  an  article  on  the  Irish 
question,  yet  with  searchings  of  heart  which  he 
expressed  in  a  letter  to  Dr.  Marcus  Dods  :  "  To 
tell  you  the  truth,  I  felt  great  compun6^ion  in 
asking  his  help,  for  I  cannot  believe  that  all  that 
evangelising,  banqueting,  reconciling  and  phil- 
andering can  ever  be  the  material  of  a  sincere 
and  healthy  life."  And  years  afterwards,  when 
Drummond  was  dead,  he  could  say  :  "  The  book 
[Sir  G.  A.  Smith's  L.ife  of  Drummond]  confirms 
what  I  never  could  help  feeling — that  Drummond 
was  a  charlatan,  in  the  sense  that  he  was  always 
trying  tasks  far  beyond  him.  .  .  .  And  how 
remarkably  absent  are  any  traces  of  serious 
reading  and  thought — even  reading  of  any  kind. 
He  was  as  ill-read  as  a  bishop."  Uncharitable 
and  supercilious  judgments,  no  doubt,  but  not 
so  very  wide  of  the  mark.  Robertson  NicoU 
was  seldom  wide  of  the  mark.  Huckfter  he  was, 
charlatan  never,  and  it  was  with  chara6teri§tic 
acumen  that  he  defined  the  charlatan  as  one  who 
attempts  tasks  beyond  his  power.  His  own  aim 
was  good  because  he  remained  always  with 
perfed  hone^  within  the  limits  of  his  endow- 
ment. 

Nicoll  developed  several  other  journalistic 
enterprises  beside  the  British  Weekly — notably 
The  Bookman,  the  firSl  literary  journal  to  realise 
the  possibilities  of  the  half-tone  block — but  by 
far  the  greatest  engine  of  his  influence  was  the 
"  Correspondence  of  Claudius  Clear  "  which  he 

234 


CLAUDIUS     clear'* 

Started  in  the  second  year  of  the  British  Weekly 
and  continued  without  a  break  xintil  his  death. 
As  a  journalistic  tour  de  force  one  muSt  simply 
applaud  it :  articulate  praise  would  be  an  im- 
pertinence. "  Claudius  Clear "  never  said  a 
single  great  thing — it  is  not  the  business  of  a 
journalist  to  say  great  things  even  if  he  could — 
but  he  was  always  sayiag  good  things,  and  his 
manner  of  saying  them  entides  him  to  rank  as 
the  perfect  StyUSt  of  popular  English  journalism. 
His  versatiHty  was  bewildering.  He  could  write 
of  a  forgotten  book  picked  out  of  the  twopenny 
box  like  Mr.  E.  V.  Lucas,  of  a  cold  in  the  head 
(Nicoll  always  had  a  cold)  Hke  Mr.  Lynd,  of  a 
Puritan  myStic  like  Dr.  Alexander  Whyte  with 
authority,  and  in  a  manner  all  his  own  about  any 
perfectly  uninteresting  acquaintance  who  had  the 
misfortune  to  turn  up  in  the  obituary  column  of 
The  Times.  From  time  to  time  Nicoll  published 
colle6Hons  of  these  papers  in  book-form,  and 
anyone  who  cares  to  turn  to  them  even  at  this 
time  of  day  will  find  them  uncommonly  good 
and  fresh  reading. 

Upon  the  death  of  R.  H.  Hutton,  who  was 
one  of  his  idols,  "  Claudius  Clear "  wrote : 
"  Journalists  often  forget  that  they  are  writing 
for  a  baptized  people,  but  the  editors  of  the 
Spectator  did  not,  and  have  had  their  reward." 
The  coolness  of  the  observation  rather  takes  one's 
breath  away,  yet  it  was  written  without  any 
sense  of  impropriety.     Robertson  Nicoll  aded 

235 


BROTHER     SCOTS 

Upon  it  all  his  life,  and  he  too  had  his  reward. 
He  had  it  to  a  greater  degree  than  was  ever 
deemed  possible  in  Hutton's  day.  It  took  the 
form  of  hard  cash  in  ample  measure,  academic 
honours,  a  knighthood,  a  Companionship  of 
Honour,  and — though  he  had  no  great  interest 
in  politics — an  amazing  amount  of  political 
influence,  especially  in  the  later  Stages  of  the 
Great  War,  when  perplexed  Statesmen  were  glad 
to  have  his  advice.  It  is  said  that  nobody  ever 
regretted  having  taken  it. 

Robertson  NicoU's  temper  when  crossed  was 
formidable,  and  he  was  capable  of  bitter  and 
savage  invedtive  that  made  the  boldest  quail. 
There  was  a  sinister  Streak  in  him,  redeeming  him 
always  in  the  laSt  resort  from  commonplaceness, 
and  giving  him  his  pecuUar  though  never  obvious 
quality.  In  the  ordinary  way  of  life  he  was  the 
quiet  almost  timid  man,  apparently  true  to  type, 
clumsy  and  uncouth  in  his  habits,  absorbed  in 
his  job,  gentle  in  the  domestic  circle,  beloved  by 
his  few  friends.  He  was  a  good  talker  among 
his  intimates,  whom  he  chose  from  men  of  the 
world  who  could  have  no  possible  theological 
contacts  with  him.  In  general  he  was  inclined 
to  play  up  to  the  part  of  the  Scotsman  of  Eng- 
lish tradition — the  broad -spoken,  sentimental. 
Sabbath-observing,  casuistical,  contentious,  in- 
dustrious, "  bang  went  saxpence "  Scotsman, 
and  it  cannot  be  said  that  in  so  doing  he  did 
himself  any  injustice.     He  was  that  Scotsman. 

236 


CLAUDIUS     CLEAR 

But  he  was  other  things  as  well.  He  died  at 
HampSlead  on  May  4,  1923,  in  his  seventy- 
second  year,  the  cleverer,  shrewder  Scot  of 
his  generation, 

.  .  ,  facetus 
emunftae  naris,  durus  componere  versus  : 
nam  fuit  hoc  vitiosus  :  in  hora  saepe  ducentos, 
ut  magnum,  versus  diftabat  Slans  pede  in  uno. 


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